So There's No Archaeological Evidence For The Book Of Mormon?

[Gray]

Q is the correct answer.

 

It's actually 42

[ksfisher]

It's actually 42

 

How many roads must a man walk down...

[canard78]

However, you might want to consider my own pointed opinions on the subject:

 

“The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” illustrated 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 .

 

“Epistolary Form in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review, 22/2 (2010), 125-135, online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=22&num=2&id=807 .

 

“The ‘Golden’ Plates,” FARMS Update, October 1984, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 275-278.  Online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=847 .

 

“'The Land of Jerusalem’: The Place of Jesus Birth,” FARMS Update, May 1984, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 170-172. Online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=814 . 

 

“New Information About Mulek, Son of the King,” FARMS Update, February 1984, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 142-144. Online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=806 .

 

If you like those, I can provide more.

 

I promised to read through this and have been doing so in pockets over the last few days (being on a first trip to Mumbai is somewhat distracting from this thread). I'll give this more time later, but wanted to share first impressions of this document while they're still fresh.

 

I was impressed with the etymologies. That's probably because I love etymology in the first place and enjoy tracing roots of words back as far as possible. I recognise the reality that words tumble and grow and divide over the generations and can often be traced back through time in various forms. So a few of your etymologies are indeed persuasive. Irreantum, for example, seems a strong "hit." My knowledge of Egyptian is non-existent, so I'll take your word for it.

 

However, I have a few issues with the etymology approach as evidence for the Book of Mormon:

• It's internal evidence, not external evidence. Now that doesn't mean it can be proposed as evidence at all. It certainly can, but it's not what I'm looking for. I've discussed at length that "concrete," tangible, external evidence is what is far more compelling to me. NHM inscriptions, gravel courtyards and mesoamerican paintings of multi-racial (dark and light-skinned) people. Now you might well criticise me for false expectations, but that's what I would find more convincing.

   

• The etymology approach has got an almost limitless source of language to choose from. In your document alone you provide word origins that reference Hebrew, Egyptian, Elephantine Jews, Assyrian, Arabic, Syrian, Iran, Armenia, Aramaic. That's an incredibly huge sourcebook to cherry pick from. Now, before you complain, I understand how language works and I fully appreciate that multiple cultures and languages really are the way that many languages develop. English is a good example which has words referencing Celtic, Norse, Latin, Greek, Germanic. But English is a language that has evolved, and continues to evolve, over many centuries based on multiple interactions with those other cultures. Words have come and gone. The hypothetical language of the Book of Mormon people does not have the same mult-generational influence, which brings me onto point three...

   

• The Lehites bottle-neck. Brant Gardner, in this thread, has made the point that many other apologists have made, which is that a small landing party of 20-30 people, who quickly merged with local cultures and customs can't be expected to leave much of a discernible imprint on mesoamerican culture. If Nephites became a subset then we won't be able to find substantial external evidence for the Book of Mormon. The same would apply to language. You're referencing words in the Book of Mormon that are mentioned several hundred years after the Lehite bottle neck has happened. The only old world influence on later generations of Nephites that can be admissible are the influences that were carried in the words and writing of Lehi and Nephi. While we certainly don't know what those were, it seems overly generous to be able to pick from any and all of the ancient middle east when constructing etymologies.

Some of them are good, as I said, others less so. For example, an 1812 dictionary of the Bible says that "The Jews make a great difference betwixt the patriarchs of Judaea and the princes of the Babylonish captivity, calling the latter rabbana, and the others simply rabban..." If you're going to argue that in 90 B.C. the Lamanites had a word for "great king" that had lasted over 500 years through all of the cultural dilutions the Lamanites had experienced by merging with the locals then would you also concede that Rabbana is also a word Joseph could have heard and re-used?

 

In case you're wondering, the ones I found fairly convincing were mainly the ones from the early parts of the Book of Mormon. It's reasonable to expect that Lehi/Nephi would name places using their language and influences. Names from nearly 600 year later (Paanchi etc)? Not so much.

 

I'm almost out of time... one last thought on weights and measures...

 

You quoted Alma 11:4:

 

And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner of the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah.

(Emphasis mine) 

 

Alma 11:4 is estimated to be 82 B.C. Remember the Lehite bottle neck mentioned earlier? The only old world influence on the Nephite weights and meaures system came with Nephi. The verse clearly states that in every generation since Nephi, the measures had been altered. But despite this, you draw a direct comparison back to a system in Egypt and Israel. You even go so far as to state that: "Both the Nephites and Israelites use the same Egypto-Semitic base and multiples..."

 

Tell me something, if the Nephite system bore no relationship at all to the Egyptian or Israelite what would you and other apologists say? Would it be something like: "we can't expect a small landing party... etc"

 

And given this thread has become mostly about Mesoamerican archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, can you show me any evidence (external to the Book of Mormon) of a weights and measures system, in mesoamerica, that also "...use the same Egypto-Semitic base and multiples..."

 

Mayans were apparently using "armfuls and fistfuls"... not really the same though is it?

 

We would expect that in Mesoamerica, quite certainly the area where the history of the Nephites was played out, there might be evidence of standards. Such would include measures of volume for grains plus weights of precious metals of values equivalent to the amounts of grain.

When the Spanish invaders arrived, they reported that in the markets everything was sold by volume. For example, the Aztecs used a wooden box, called quauhchiaquihuitl, to measure corn and other dry goods; this box was divided until the smallest unit was a twelfth part of the whole. Graded sizes of jars served to measure liquid. They also had special cups to measure out gold tribute payments to the Spanish in units roughly equivalent to our ounces. Maya groups in southern Mesoamerica also relied primarily on volume measures (for example, the “armload” and “fistful”) From the area around Kaminaljuyu on the outskirts of Guatemala City (the “land of Nephi” to some) archaeologists have, in fact found bowls manufactured to a standard pattern and of gradually reducing sizes; these may represent socially established measures of volume belonging to the time period--the first and second centuries B.C.--when the Lamanites are reported by the Book of Mormon to be living in Nephi.

Further, there is all but conclusive evidence that weights were not used anywhere in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquest, nor were scales known. The archaeological and ethnological literature has credited Andean peoples and other South Americans with the possession of scales. Fragmentary information hints at the possibility--no more--that scales were known at some points in Mesoamerica in an earlier era even though they apparently were not continued in use for Spanish eyewitnesses to observe. (Many other cultural ideas and objects are known to have been lost since ancient times.)

It has been suggested by some Latter-day Saints that sets of small metal objects used currently in weighing goods for sale in Guatemalan marketplaces are descended culturally from a system of weighing assumed to have been used in pre-Spanish, and indeed in Book of Mormon times. Objective evidence for this claim is lacking. Indeed, historically the use of scales and weights in Guatemala appears to have been brought in by Europeans perhaps no more than 90 years ago. All the materials and terminology involved in these devices are of Spanish origin.

Yet the studies of Mesoamerican standards for measurement that have been done so far have been extremely limited. The topic deserves in-depth research whereupon greater clarity may be attained.

 

 

John L. Sorenson, “Did the Ancient Peoples of Mesoamerica Use a System of Weights and Scales in Measuring Goods & Their Values?” in John L. Sorenson ed. Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 8, Num. 2, 1999, p. 47

[Calm]

My apologies if you mentioned this already, didnt read your whole post yet...

"The only old world influence on later generations of Nephites that can be admissible are the influences that were carried in the words and writing of Lehi and Nephi"

They brought the brass plass over to help maintain their customs and language so it seems likely to me that some were taught how to be able to read them.

[canard78]

My apologies if you mentioned this already, didnt read your whole post yet...

"The only old world influence on later generations of Nephites that can be admissible are the influences that were carried in the words and writing of Lehi and Nephi"

They brought the brass plass over to help maintain their customs and language so it seems likely to me that some were taught how to be able to read them.

Thanks for seeking clarification. I wasn't clear enough. When I said "...writings of..." I was thinking of both the writings they carried (inc Brass Plates) and the writings they produced (e.g. Gold plates).

Having said that, if the Mulekites had lost their language within 200 years without the brass plates, is it reasonable to assign ancient origins to words in Lamanite locations like Rabbannah or Waters of Sebus?

We could also suggest that the Brass Plates had a copy of Robert's Egypyian/Israelite weights and measures, explaining the parallel, but that would undermine the actual BoM text.

[Calm]

Losing enough language to communicate could still allow for traditions of naming. My niece just gave her new baby the name Brita in part because it was in both her and her husband's genealogy even though no one in the family has been back to the "old country" it came from in a couple of generations that I know of...possibly since the family member first migrated (even though people have traveled extensively in Europe, the closest I've heard of was Denmark and Finland (which was us on a few hour layover flying to Russia). And no one in the family that I know speaks Swedish. Her older son has been given a strong Scottish name repeated in each generation, first as last names, then as first names, then a middle name or two and now again a first name.

My small town continues to call the mountain behind us a different name than the rest of the county or the world for that matter, everyone elses' map have a different name on them. I wonder if the tradition will last for another hundred years or not. The mountain has two other names, one from Spanish explorers and one probably from early settlers before the river and canyon lent their shared name to it. So four names for one small mountain, each based on a different tradition. The Spanish name is used in California, Arizona, Utah and Mexico that i know of. Undoubtedly elsewhere as well given its meaning.

People carry the names of places with them as they move around as well. From what I've seen, family names were more important in past cultures, at least some of them. Perhaps it was also important for those who would likely never see home again to have familiar names around them...we just don't see the inbetween places that carried the names so it seems out of the blue to us.

Just speculating off of things I've learned, Brant or someone can correct if I've gone off track.

Edited July 16, 2015 by calmoriah

[Robert F. Smith]

...............................................................

.......................... if the Mulekites had lost their language within 200 years without the brass plates, is it reasonable to assign ancient origins to words in Lamanite locations like Rabbannah or Waters of Sebus?

We don't actually know the ethnic composition of the Mulekite group, even though it included a son of King Zedekiah.  We can only speculate on the composition of the ship's crew and royal retainers who accompanied him.  An Egyptian ship with a crew of freebooters from Greece, Asia Minor, as well as Phoenicia might produce a polyglot effect which made them unable to communicate effectively with the Nephites -- at least at first.  They may also have mixed with local inhabitants.  We possess no detailed history of these matters.

 

We could also suggest that the Brass Plates had a copy of Robert's Egypyian/Israelite weights and measures, explaining the parallel, but that would undermine the actual BoM text.

Not clear what you are suggesting here.  Could you clarify?

[Calm]

"Having said that, if the Mulekites had lost their language within 200 years without the brass plates, is it reasonable to assign ancient origins to words in Lamanite locations like Rabbannah or Waters of Sebus?"

Do we know that the Lamanites called them that or were they names the Nephites labeled them with (such as the US and others giving names to places that the inhabitants don't call it, such as Peking once upon a time).

[Robert F. Smith]

....................................................................

 

.............................................................a few of your etymologies are indeed persuasive. Irreantum, for example, seems a strong "hit." ...................................................

....................................................................................................

The etymology approach has got an almost limitless source of language to choose from. In your document alone you provide word origins that reference Hebrew, Egyptian, Elephantine Jews, Assyrian, Arabic, Syrian, Iran, Armenia, Aramaic. That's an incredibly huge sourcebook to cherry pick from. ...................................................................

Here and below you make this same point.  However, the Armenian and Persian were not used as the etymologies of the Book of Mormon names, but rather as a further source of the immediate Egyptian source for Irreantum.  I was trying to show the Middle Eastern context.  One would like to know the full semantic range accepted anciently.  Thus the sourcebook is really limited to two primary languages, Egyptian (in which the Brass Plates and Book of Mormon are written) and biblical Hebrew (which was maintained as a spoken language among at least the Nephite scribal elite).  Elephantine, which is a Jewish colony in Egypt which builds a Jewish temple and uses Aramaic (a Semitic language used in the later Bible and very close to Hebrew), is an exemplar of the very thing which the Book of Mormon portrays for itself -- even though Elephantine was unknown in Joseph's day.  How odd that the very form of a measure used in the Book of Mormon also appears only there at Elephantine.

 

 

The Lehites bottle-neck. .............................................................. the Lehite bottle neck ............................................... overly generous to be able to pick from any and all of the ancient middle east when constructing etymologies.

...........................................................................the cultural dilutions the Lamanites had experienced .....................................................................

The Lehite bottleneck is certainly a possibility, but it is merely a theory, rather than fact -- an hypothesis to be tested.  I would like to see more evidence.

 

In case you're wondering, the ones I found fairly convincing were mainly the ones from the early parts of the Book of Mormon. It's reasonable to expect that Lehi/Nephi would name places using their language and influences. Names from nearly 600 year later (Paanchi etc)? Not so much.

Actually, it was precisely the names Paanchi and Pahoran which William F. Albright found so Egyptian, and these are names used within a particular family, including Pacumeni.  Each uses the common Egyptian pa- prefix (definite article), as in Pathros ("The Land Southward") in Isaiah.

 

 

......................................................................  

 

Alma 11:4 is estimated to be 82 B.C. Remember the Lehite bottle neck mentioned earlier? The only old world influence on the Nephite weights and meaures system came with Nephi. The verse clearly states that in every generation since Nephi, the measures had been altered. But despite this, you draw a direct comparison back to a system in Egypt and Israel. You even go so far as to state that: "Both the Nephites and Israelites use the same Egypto-Semitic base and multiples..."

 

Tell me something, if the Nephite system bore no relationship at all to the Egyptian or Israelite what would you and other apologists say? Would it be something like: "we can't expect a small landing party... etc"

I take the Nephite assertion with the same grain of salt with which I take a good deal of biblical palaver.  It is no doubt partly true, particularly in the alteration of the actual amounts of silver, gold, and grain in each measure.  Plus the names of each measure have been changed, but are still related etymologically in some instances (which I point out).  The striking thing is that the ratios remain the same.

 

And given this thread has become mostly about Mesoamerican archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, can you show me any evidence (external to the Book of Mormon) of a weights and measures system, in mesoamerica, that also "...use the same Egypto-Semitic base and multiples..."

 

Mayans were apparently using "armfuls and fistfuls"... not really the same though is it?

 

John L. Sorenson, “Did the Ancient Peoples of Mesoamerica Use a System of Weights and Scales in Measuring Goods & Their Values?” in John L. Sorenson ed. Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 8, Num. 2, 1999, p. 47

I do appreciate your very thoughtful comments, especially on a source of rabbana contemporary with Joseph.  I also appreciate the thinking of Sorenson on weights & measures.  One must address the source text and compare archeological results.  That does not mean that the relatively unexcavated sites and period are likely to give us immediate results of any kind.  Instead, we look at much later styles of measuring -- the best we can do at the moment.  But be aware that the Maya are not within the Nephite orbit in Sorenson's conception, but rather he sees the central Nephite area and Zarahemla in the region of the Grijalva River Valley, which was most recently inhabited by a Mixe-Zoque people (whom some define as descendants of the Olmec).

[Robert F. Smith]

How many roads must a man walk down...

As many as it takes to find the hypotenuse -- I get that from "The Pirates of Penzance."  

[ksfisher]

As many as it takes to find the hypotenuse -- I get that from "The Pirates of Penzance."  

 

You were just looking for an excuse to use the pirate emoticon.

[Hoosier]

I think Hoosier is making an absurd statement to highlight the fact that even if we found "conclusive" evidence for Nephites that it wouldn't necessarily mean that people would believe the message of the Book of Mormon. 

 

That, and because I've heard critics say "We can believe in the Bible because there's evidence. We know where Jerusalem is. We know where the River Jordan is. etc. We don't know where anything in the BOM is."  Well, if you're going to use that argument, we know where Harmony, PA is; we know where Kirtland, OH is, so we can know it's not made up.

[thesometimesaint]

That, and because I've heard critics say "We can believe in the Bible because there's evidence. We know where Jerusalem is. We know where the River Jordan is. etc. We don't know where anything in the BOM is."  Well, if you're going to use that argument, we know where Harmony, PA is; we know where Kirtland, OH is, so we can know it's not made up.

 

But would they necessarily know Jerusalem by its Arabic name of Bayt Al-Maqdis بيت المقدس

Edited July 16, 2015 by thesometimesaint

[Avatar4321]

So from reading this thread it looks like "no evidence" really means "no evidence excluding 'internal' evidence as well as NHM/Bountiful"

In other words there is quite a bit of evidence but we should ignore it for some quantifiable reason.

Considering there should be zero evidence of any kind and we have:

1) Eye witness accounts

2) Many So called internal evidences

3) a few "external" evidences

4) And most importantly, the Holy Spirit testifying that the Book of Mormon is true.

I can only conclude that there is definitely not no evidence of the Book of Mormon being true.

All that evidence when none should exist. Pretty marvelous isn't it?

[canard78]

So from reading this thread it looks like "no evidence" really means "no evidence excluding 'internal' evidence as well as NHM/Bountiful"

In other words there is quite a bit of evidence but we should ignore it for some quantifiable reason.

Considering there should be zero evidence of any kind and we have:

1) Eye witness accounts

2) Many So called internal evidences

3) a few "external" evidences

4) And most importantly, the Holy Spirit testifying that the Book of Mormon is true.

I can only conclude that there is definitely not no evidence of the Book of Mormon being true.

All that evidence when none should exist. Pretty marvelous isn't it?

 

Uh... straw man alert?

 

I didn't say there was no evidence at all. I've said two things. I started this thread because I was responding to a post by Dan Peterson where he took the oft-used approach of saying: "we've just not found it yet" which therefore implied that there wasn't much worth holding up (it did to me anyway).

 

Since then the thread has meandered (and been re-born half way through) into specifically external archaeological evidence for the Americas.

 

NHM and Bountiful are both impressive convergences but could still be coincidence. There's nothing in either of those sites that independently confirm the presence of Lehites in those locations. I know the chances of that happening are close to 0. Not because they were never there, but because even if they were, they would have been unlikely to leave any kind of trace.

[canard78]

We don't actually know the ethnic composition of the Mulekite group, even though it included a son of King Zedekiah.  We can only speculate on the composition of the ship's crew and royal retainers who accompanied him.  An Egyptian ship with a crew of freebooters from Greece, Asia Minor, as well as Phoenicia might produce a polyglot effect which made them unable to communicate effectively with the Nephites -- at least at first.  They may also have mixed with local inhabitants.  We possess no detailed history of these matters.

Good point, we've no real idea. For the language to have become so corrupted there must have been a lot of intermingling.

My point was really about whether it's likely that Lamanites were still using words with Egyptian/Hebrew roots some 500 years later? It's possible of course. While they didn't have the brass plates Laman and Lemuel could have had words that ended up sticking and being used.

Not clear what you are suggesting here.  Could you clarify?

I just meant that the weights and measures that they used could have been based on a system that might have been written on the brass plates and therefore remained consistent over 400 years. I was trying to be balanced and find ways of explaining why the Nephites might have a similar currency denomination to Egyptians.

[canard78]

Here and below you make this same point.  However, the Armenian and Persian were not used as the etymologies of the Book of Mormon names, but rather as a further source of the immediate Egyptian source for Irreantum.  I was trying to show the Middle Eastern context.  One would like to know the full semantic range accepted anciently.  Thus the sourcebook is really limited to two primary languages, Egyptian (in which the Brass Plates and Book of Mormon are written) and biblical Hebrew (which was maintained as a spoken language among at least the Nephite scribal elite).  Elephantine, which is a Jewish colony in Egypt which builds a Jewish temple and uses Aramaic (a Semitic language used in the later Bible and very close to Hebrew), is an exemplar of the very thing which the Book of Mormon portrays for itself -- even though Elephantine was unknown in Joseph's day.  How odd that the very form of a measure used in the Book of Mormon also appears only there at Elephantine.

 

I've been thinking more about the Elephantine community and trying to read up more about it. Isn't Elephantine a problem for the Book of Mormon? A group of Jews, perhaps soldiers or mercenaries, settle in Elephantine around 600BC. They build a temple, leave documents, artifacts etc. There's no need for any spiritual claims or revelation to reach a confident conclusion that Jews lived in Elephantine for several hundred years, is there?

Now of course you can argue that Elephantine likely had closer contact with the homeland and that it's in a desert rather than a jjungle so more survived etc etc... but... the fact remains that there's nothing remotely like Elephantine in the entire canon of mormon apologetics. There's nothing that independently says: "a Jewish colony was established in mesoamerica some time between 600 and 580 BC."

You can say it's unrealistic to expect to find that evidence... but Elephantine shows what it would look like if we were to find it. There's no confirmed "House of Yahweh" in mesoamerica is there? The Elephantine temple not only points to Jews being there, but even which tribes/parts of Israel they came from.

 

The Lehite bottleneck is certainly a possibility, but it is merely a theory, rather than fact -- an hypothesis to be tested.  I would like to see more evidence.

More evidence for what? I'm not sure I understand. Perhaps I've unintentionally used a phrase that is already currency for something else? I simply meant that the only Hebrew/Egyptian influences we can assign to Nephite culture are the influences that came on the boat with Lehi and Nephi. Where else could they have come from?

Actually, it was precisely the names Paanchi and Pahoran which William F. Albright found so Egyptian, and these are names used within a particular family, including Pacumeni.  Each uses the common Egyptian pa- prefix (definite article), as in Pathros ("The Land Southward") in Isaiah.

  

There are a lot of names in the Book of Mormon. To have found four or five with "Pa" at the start is interesting, but hardly anything concrete. Do you suppose the Greek names Timothy and Lachoneus survived several centuries in Mesoamerican culture because they were also on the Brass plates? Or some other reason. There's little consistency of approach.

 

I take the Nephite assertion with the same grain of salt with which I take a good deal of biblical palaver.  It is no doubt partly true, particularly in the alteration of the actual amounts of silver, gold, and grain in each measure.  Plus the names of each measure have been changed, but are still related etymologically in some instances (which I point out).  The striking thing is that the ratios remain the same.

 

You didn't really answer my question though. If the Nephite system bore no resemblance to any Egyptian/Jewish system, would this verse be an ally? Would you instead be reminding me that even in the last 100 years the UK currency system has had huge overhaul with little comparability to what came before.

Given the Book of Mormon's credibility depends on Nephites merging with locals, is it not odd that 400 years later they've kept the same currency system... even though they've told us they haven't kept it.

I do appreciate your very thoughtful comments, especially on a source of rabbana contemporary with Joseph.  I also appreciate the thinking of Sorenson on weights & measures.  One must address the source text and compare archeological results.  That does not mean that the relatively unexcavated sites and period are likely to give us immediate results of any kind.  Instead, we look at much later styles of measuring -- the best we can do at the moment.  But be aware that the Maya are not within the Nephite orbit in Sorenson's conception, but rather he sees the central Nephite area and Zarahemla in the region of the Grijalva River Valley, which was most recently inhabited by a Mixe-Zoque people (whom some define as descendants of the Olmec).

And this kind of rounds off back to the OP of this thread. Phrases like "relatively unexcavated" is a reminder that hopefully one day something will be found that compares to Elephantine or the Viking settlements of north america. There's nothing yet though, is there?

[KevinG]

How many roads must a man walk down...

 

False doctrine made up by a couple of desperate pan-dimensional beings due to their computer being blown up to make way for a bypass.

[KevinG]

It's actually 42

 

 

How many roads must a man walk down...

 

...and kudos for the Douglas Adams reference.  This is why I find MD&D a refreshing place to dialogue!

[Robert F. Smith]

I've been thinking more about the Elephantine community and trying to read up more about it. Isn't Elephantine a problem for the Book of Mormon? A group of Jews, perhaps soldiers or mercenaries, settle in Elephantine around 600BC. They build a temple, leave documents, artifacts etc. There's no need for any spiritual claims or revelation to reach a confident conclusion that Jews lived in Elephantine for several hundred years, is there?

Elephantine, which was likely settled ca. 650 B.C. as a military colony, in which one dos not ever find Baal-names, in which a Jewish temple is built, in which the Jewish men intermarried with local women, etc., is only known because it was excavated.  Far from being a problem for the Book of Mormon, it is analogous and supportive.  If it had not been excavated, we would not know about it.  It's prime value in Book of Mormon studies is that it has so much in common with the Book of Mormon settlements.  Moreover, it is not the only instance in which Jews settled outside Palestine and built temples.  Can you tell me about at least one other place in which the Jews built a temple outside Palestine?  In addition, can you tell me of at least one place into which Jews migrated, but which we would not know about without DNA confirmation?

 

Now of course you can argue that Elephantine likely had closer contact with the homeland and that it's in a desert rather than a jjungle so more survived etc etc... but... the fact remains that there's nothing remotely like Elephantine in the entire canon of mormon apologetics. There's nothing that independently says: "a Jewish colony was established in mesoamerica some time between 600 and 580 BC."  You can say it's unrealistic to expect to find that evidence... but Elephantine shows what it would look like if we were to find it. There's no confirmed "House of Yahweh" in mesoamerica is there? The Elephantine temple not only points to Jews being there, but even which tribes/parts of Israel they came from.

Hugh Nibley rightly made much of Elephantine, and so do I, but the discussion does not stop there.  You clearly understand that preservation of organic materials is excellent in Egypt and the Judean desert, but no so good under other conditions.  I don't set the conditions, scholars do, by observation.  You shouldn't make it a partisan matter.  That's dirty pool.

 

More evidence for what? I'm not sure I understand. Perhaps I've unintentionally used a phrase that is already currency for something else? I simply meant that the only Hebrew/Egyptian influences we can assign to Nephite culture are the influences that came on the boat with Lehi and Nephi. Where else could they have come from?

Why did you use the term "bottleneck" then?  It carries with it the notion that there had to be union or intermarriage with locals.  I am not opposed to the idea, but we need more evidence for it.  We do not have enough evidence now.  It is simply not true, as you claim below, that " the Book of Mormon's credibility depends on Nephites merging with locals."

 

There are a lot of names in the Book of Mormon. To have found four or five with "Pa" at the start is interesting, but hardly anything concrete. Do you suppose the Greek names Timothy and Lachoneus survived several centuries in Mesoamerican culture because they were also on the Brass plates? Or some other reason. There's little consistency of approach.

You could say the same of a number of important archeological sites in the Levant.  At Ugarit, for example, we find names from a number of ethnic backgrounds.  Instead of talking about "consistency," we simply catalogue them according to ethnicity.  We do the same in the Book of Mormon.  Multiple ethnicity is not a problem in the Old World.  Why do you make it a problem in the New World?  That is why Albright had no problem with it.  You do understand who Albright was, right?  Your argument is with him, not me.

 

 

You didn't really answer my question though. If the Nephite system bore no resemblance to any Egyptian/Jewish system, would this verse be an ally? Would you instead be reminding me that even in the last 100 years the UK currency system has had huge overhaul with little comparability to what came before.

Given the Book of Mormon's credibility depends on Nephites merging with locals, is it not odd that 400 years later they've kept the same currency system... even though they've told us they haven't kept it.

First off, they did not phrase it the way you do (for maximum negative effect?).  What they say is more measured, and my understanding of it is likewise measured.  This is the way biblical studies proceeds.  Very few biblical scholars take the text as an absolute, and will argue with it if need be.  Why?  Because humans wrote and edited the text, sometimes saying things which were not true (out of piety or lack of information), or saying them in ways which may be interpreted to mean something other than one's apriori understanding.

 

And this kind of rounds off back to the OP of this thread. Phrases like "relatively unexcavated" is a reminder that hopefully one day something will be found that compares to Elephantine or the Viking settlements of north america. There's nothing yet though, is there?

The Book of Mormon period in Mesaomerica is very little excavated.  That is not a communist plot, but a simple fact, which means that the plethora of evidence one can expect in the Middle East is simply not there.  Not an excuse.  Just a fact.  You are asking for more than is available and making it sound like someone is being deceptive.  You need to learn to accept reality as it is.  I don't stand around hoping against hope.  I accept things as they are.  That is the beginning of wisdom.

 

At a crime scene, the analysts do not stand around and complain about what is not there.  Instead, they gather what is available and utilize it.  That is what archeologists and historians do.  There is no point in finding fault with them.  That's the best they can do.

[canard78]

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful response.
 

Elephantine, which was likely settled ca. 650 B.C. as a military colony, in which one dos not ever find Baal-names, in which a Jewish temple is built, in which the Jewish men intermarried with local women, etc., is only known because it was excavated.  Far from being a problem for the Book of Mormon, it is analogous and supportive.  If it had not been excavated, we would not know about it.  It's prime value in Book of Mormon studies is that it has so much in common with the Book of Mormon settlements.  Moreover, it is not the only instance in which Jews settled outside Palestine and built temples.  Can you tell me about at least one other place in which the Jews built a temple outside Palestine?  In addition, can you tell me of at least one place into which Jews migrated, but which we would not know about without DNA confirmation?

It's supportive by offering parallels and convergences. But parallels and convergences are really all that the Book of Mormon has by way of evidence. Elephantine has been established through direct, concrete evidence that is independent and peer reviewed. 

 

Elephantine illustrates what Book of Mormon evidence could look like. Both you, Brand and others have said that people have excessively high expectations. You tell us that it's unreasonable to expect actual artifacts to be found (or found any time soon) that independently verify that Nephites (or Jews) lived in in the Americas. Elephantine contradicts that argument. While I fully accept that the environmental conditions in the americas are more challenging, it's still a location that is being investigated. Elephantine shows what evidence of a Jewish temple outside looks like. Elephantine also shows what evidence of Jewish settlements looks like, local miscegenation looks like, etc etc. Until a location in the Americas is excavated and independently produces evidences for a Jewish settlement, a Jewish temple and Jewish cultural mingling then all your left with is an 19th Century scripture and a series of convergences. Convergences alone are not convincing.

 

Why did you use the term "bottleneck" then?  It carries with it the notion that there had to be union or intermarriage with locals.  I am not opposed to the idea, but we need more evidence for it.  We do not have enough evidence now.  It is simply not true, as you claim below, that " the Book of Mormon's credibility depends on Nephites merging with locals."

Pure miscommunication. I wasn't aware that "bottleneck" had a predefined meaning related to intermarriage.

 

I specifically meant the following:

 

When the Lehites arrived in the Americas they brought with them a set of old world influences and cultural attitudes/language/names/behaviours. Some of them were carried in their minds, others on the Brass Plates. In addition to that, the Mulekite party might also have brought some of the same.

 

When looking into the Book of Mormon for possible links with the old world, the only credible source of those influences are the Lehites and (possibly) the Mulekites. There's no other source for the influences. So while it's acceptable to assume that if the Nephites existed that they would have names and customs that were influenced by the old world, you have to limit it to any influences that survived and then spread from the first landing party.

 

Where else or how else would a Nephite name have come from 500 years later. So while it's reasonable to cite the "Pa" names as evidence, I was pointing out that the source of that tradition of "Pa" names has to come through the Lehite landing party (or possibly the Mulekite one). 

 

In other cultures and languages there are often multiple contacts. English names and language, for example has an amazingly diverse source book. Latin, Greek, Germanic, Celtic, Saxon... etc etc... but the difference is that England had multiple contacts with those cultures and influences over the course of several 1000 years. The only source of influence on names in the Book of Mormon came on the boat with Lehi.

 

You could say the same of a number of important archeological sites in the Levant.  At Ugarit, for example, we find names from a number of ethnic backgrounds.  Instead of talking about "consistency," we simply catalogue them according to ethnicity.  We do the same in the Book of Mormon.  Multiple ethnicity is not a problem in the Old World.  Why do you make it a problem in the New World?  That is why Albright had no problem with it.  You do understand who Albright was, right?  Your argument is with him, not me.

 
It's not that multiple ethnicity is a problem. I understand why you're saying it's possible. It's expected. I'm just pointing out (as I do above) that the source of that multiple-ethnicity can only be traced through the Lehite influences. The example you cite in support of your argument, Ugarit, had multiple contacts over 100s of years from the influences and multiple ethnic backgrounds. It was a port city and so would have had daily arrivals of multiple sources and influences. The people of the americas in the Book of Mormon are completely different. They did not have multiple contacts and influences. There is just one in around 600BC. And yet several hundred years later they are still using names that go back to a land that none of them had ever seen. Despite the many local influences, you still consider it reasonable to find lots of old world influences.
 

First off, they did not phrase it the way you do (for maximum negative effect?).  What they say is more measured, and my understanding of it is likewise measured.  This is the way biblical studies proceeds.  Very few biblical scholars take the text as an absolute, and will argue with it if need be.  Why?  Because humans wrote and edited the text, sometimes saying things which were not true (out of piety or lack of information), or saying them in ways which may be interpreted to mean something other than one's apriori understanding.

Here it is in their own words:

 

 

And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner of the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah.

 

Now you can brush it off with a laugh and say it's just funny old Nephites making stuff up. But that's pretty clear to me. And you've still not answered the question. If the Nephite system of reckoning bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Jewish/Egyptian system, would you be using the above verse to defend why it did not have one?

 

That verse seems pretty clear to me. The Nephites say quite clearly that they did not use the same measure system as the old world and that they had altered it several times, over several generations. So your parallel is likely no more than the many other Book of Mormon parallels: it's a coincidence.

 

Coincidences are much more likely when you have a huge pool of data to draw from. The old world is a huge pool which is why the old world convergences evidences for the Book of Mormon is so unconvincing.
 

The Book of Mormon period in Mesaomerica is very little excavated.  That is not a communist plot, but a simple fact, which means that the plethora of evidence one can expect in the Middle East is simply not there.  Not an excuse.  Just a fact.  You are asking for more than is available and making it sound like someone is being deceptive.  You need to learn to accept reality as it is.  I don't stand around hoping against hope.  I accept things as they are.  That is the beginning of wisdom.
 
At a crime scene, the analysts do not stand around and complain about what is not there.  Instead, they gather what is available and utilize it.  That is what archeologists and historians do.  There is no point in finding fault with them.  That's the best they can do.

 

You're right that the location sets restrictions and limitations. I get that. I'm not saying there's some cover-up happening. I'm sure that any archaeologist worth his or her salt would be delighted to be the first one to announce to the world that they had excavated the remains of a Jewish settlement in the Americas. When the Viking settlement was discovered there was no attempt to suppress the find.

 

I'm not suggesting anyone is being deceptive whatsoever. I agree that the Americas are relatively unexcavated. They are not, however, entirely unexcavated. 

 

Your mention of a crime scene reminded me of an illustrated cartoon book that my parents owned. It was a book about the Book of Mormon being on trial (I think the actual book had a mouth, arms, legs... anyone remember that one?).

 

So if Mesoamerica were the "crime scene" and evidence was called for to explain the origins of the people who lived there between 600BC and 400AD, would you be able to offer any evidence that Jewish/old world people were among those origins and influences?

[Kevin Christensen]

According to Wikipedia:

The Elephantine Papyri consist of 175 documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan), which yielded hundreds of papyri in hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic, spanning a period of 2000 years. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language and onomastics. They are a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts dating from the 5th century BC. They come from a Jewish community at Elephantine, then called Yeb, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, which was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BC during Manasseh's reign to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. The dry soil of Upper Egypt preserved documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan). Hundreds of these Elephantine papyri, written in hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic, span a period of 1000 years. Legal documents and a cache of letters survived, turned up on the local 'gray market' of antiquities starting in the late 19th century, and were scattered into several Western collections.

Though some fragments on papyrus are much older, the largest number of papyri are written in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire, and document the Jewish community among soldiers stationed at Elephantine under Persian rule, 495–399 BCE. The Elephantine documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives: divorce documents, the manumission of slaves, and other business, and are a valuable source of knowledge about law, society, religion, language and onomastics, the sometimes surprisingly revealing study of names.

The 'Passover letter' of 419 BCE (discovered in 1907), which gives detailed instructions for properly keeping the passover is in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.

Are there any comparable collections of papryi from Mesoamerica? Why, or why not? And without the papryi to explain the thoughts, actions, and behavior of the Jews on the island, what else distinguishes them from larger Egyptian presence? And why? And how large was the group that came to that specific island and why? How does that migration compare, in terms of difficulty, distance, combinations of trained professionals and elites, and in terms if potential distinctive cultural impact to Lehi's group? Be specific

Alma 32 distinguishes between evidence that provides "cause to believe," that invites and may be persuasive, and evidence that coerces intellectual submission. Which does he prefer and why? Which does God prefer, and why?

All of this matters to expectations. And as Kuhn says, "anomaly emerges from a background of expectation." And as Jesus says, you have to check your own eye for beams first, if you ever expect to see clearly. And that includes seeing the significance the finds at Elephantine for the Book of Mormon. Why should they have any relevance at all? Is it enough to paraphrase Helaman 16:16 that "some things they may have guest right, among so many" or is it worth discussing methodologies for assessing convergent evidences?

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited July 29, 2015 by Kevin Christensen

[mfbukowski]

Canard

You doth protest too much.

If you don't need evidence this is not your battle.

[canard78]

Canard

You doth protest too much.

If you don't need evidence this is not your battle.

As I posted in the other thread, there are two separate conversations to be had.

1) Is the text valuable?

2) Is the text of ancient origin?

I can happily discuss both. I don't need any archaeology to convince me the text has value. I know that because of personal experience. No further evidence is needed.

But topic two is also interesting to me, and that topic really does require evidence beyond personal experience.

[mfbukowski]

BOM historicity is a religious belief, not a scientific one. It is far too important to leave to the vagaries of science. How would it be if your eternal salvation depended on some Discovery in science that might be disproven tomorrow?

Edited July 25, 2015 by mfbukowski