Is The Book Of Mormon Either True Or Not?

[tagriffy]

I support the meso model. Makes the most sense. Two rivers start from the highlands in Guatemala and travel north to the Gulf of Mexico, and believe it or not, they both start near enough each other to be easily mixed up. The two rivers are the Grijalva and the Usumacinta. I believe the people of Limhi followed what they thought was the Sidon river when in reality is was the other river, therefore completely missing Zarahemla. Vague directions and no GPS makes it the most logical conclusion to make.

 

The basic problem here is the text doesn't seem to support two rivers. Even setting that problem aside, more problems arise when proposing one of those rivers is the Sidon. See posts 126 and 132.

[TheSkepticChristian]

The church makes no claim to where the lands were other than the location of Cumorah. The same with DNA. Perhaps you should ask the church the same questions.

 

I never said the church has a geography position, but the church does say that most native americans have Asian DNA.

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

 

A large area or a "semi-hemispheric" model requires millions of Nephites and Lamanites, but that contradicts the DNA evidence. 

 

may science and critical thinking be with you   

[mfbukowski]

Sorenson replies heavily on work that he actually shows me. I've got and read the Sourcebook, and Mormon's Map. And Ancient American Setting, and Mormon's Codex. He identifies hundreds of Book of Mormon passages and puts them together.

If you want to rely on facts rather than assumptions then you ought to count the generations. Zeniff, Noah, Limhi. Third generation is much more specific and factual than "several."

That means grandparents who had made the trip were very likely alive (as leader, Zeniff would not have been the oldest, and Noah died violently), and could give directions. If they had no idea where to go and what they were looking for, why bother to go? But if Grandpa can say, go up to the highlands and cross the narrow strip of wilderness, and find the source of the river. Follow the river for a few weeks and find Zarahemla on the west bank, then it all makes sense..

Several years ago, in FARMS Review 16/1, I worked through this:

I included some maps of what happens to the Limhi story if you try to start somewhere in South America, and it gets very ugly very quickly, more so if you are thinking Peru.

Poulson takes it further, even accounting for what Limhi's explorers reported seeing on the way, and a real Olmec site that was unoccupied at the time, and in a location that they could have mistaken for Zarahemla.

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

http://bomgeography.poulsenll.org/index.html

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

When I first joined the church now 36 years ago, I had a strong spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon was "true".

 

Intellectually it was crystal clear to me that it was not important if it was historically accurate or not.  My spiritual confirmation was so strong, and my conviction that everything we "know" about anything can be nothing "more" than humanly manufactured models about what works best (kind of an extreme Kuhnian position) that I considered hoping for any kind of historical accuracy to be indicated, was totally a fantasy.

 

But my position on that has changed radically in the last few years.  I am now convinced, even though I find it spiritually irrelevant, that indeed these events really happened historically.  Yes, I take my belief in historicity of the Book of Mormon as a religious belief, but the more I learn about some of the contemporary theories I find them to be perfectly plausible.  For me that is an amazing turn around.

[Mormonmaniac]

I never said the church has a geography position, but the church does say that most native americans have Asian DNA.

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

 

A large area or a "semi-hemispheric" model requires millions of Nephites and Lamanites, but that contradicts the DNA evidence. 

 

may science and critical thinking be with you

There are too many unknowns with DNA and what we are looking for. As I said previously, we have no idea what the Nephites and Lamanites DNA looked like. We also do not know what other people came to America during or after the Nephites.

[Robert F. Smith]

There are too many unknowns with DNA and what we are looking for. As I said previously, we have no idea what the Nephites and Lamanites DNA looked like.

Not true.  Particularly with ancient DNA (aDNA) taken from skeletal remains, we can establish the general nature of Israelite and Canaanite DNA.  For example, based on such work, we now know that (contrary to many suppositions) the Phoenicians were Canaanites, and that most modern Lebanese (80%) are descendants of the Canaanites.

A great deal of work has been done on Jewish DNA in recent years, showing that the Israelites were a fairly homogenous group, excepting for certain oddities (such as the Cohen modal haplotype among descendants of Aaron).  One should reasonably predict that the Lehites would show themselves to be well within the larger Israelite DNA grouping.  Moreover, if one were to do excavation of an early Lehite site in the Americas, one should be able to extract Lehite DNA from good skeletal remains -- and such DNA would naturally be readily identifiable as Israelite.

 

We also do not know what other people came to America during or after the Nephites.

False.  Anthropologists can do the same DNA studies of any group which came to the Americas, as long as NAGPRA does not interfere.  Linguistic studies have shown Near Eastern influences.  In addition, a great deal is known about culture-specific influences from Asia in the Americas.  Even Mike Coe admits that the indicators of cultural diffusion from Asia are very strong.  It is not only Mormons who are saying this.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

You seem to believe the Jaredites possessed a very small piece of real estate immediately north ofBountiful. The text doesn't imply such.

It is you who are making that assumption in the absence of any evidence for huge distances.  As I have pointed out, the Olmec stayed within a very small area, despite the greatness of their civilization.  Were we to accept your assumptions, the Olmec must have spread far and wide throughout North America.  But that is contrary to fact.  We need to live in the real world, not a construct based on fantasy.

[ERayR]

You seem to believe the Jaredites possessed a very small piece of real estate immediately north ofBountiful. The text doesn't imply such.

 

Perhaps we need to look for Zarahemla in Alaska.

[TheSkepticChristian]

Perhaps we need to look for Zarahemla in Alaska.

 

Mormonmaniac sounds like you, he says "there are too many unknowns" 

 

 

There are too many unknowns with DNA and what we are looking for. As I said previously, we have no idea what the Nephites and Lamanites DNA looked like. We also do not know what other people came to America during or after the Nephites.

 

Okay, but we do know that most Native Americans have Asian DNA from people that came to the Americas about 12,000 years ago. 

That means that a"semi-Hemispheric" model is not possible, and archaeology contradicts it.  

 

 

majority of DNA identified to date in modern native peoples most closely resembles that of eastern Asian population

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

 

May science be with you, not parallelism or pseudoscience  

 

Edited June 25, 2015 by TheSkepticChristian

[Robert F. Smith]

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

 

Okay, but we do know that most Native Americans have Asian DNA from people that came to the Americas about 12,000 years ago. 

That means that a"semi-Hemispheric" model is not possible, and archaeology contradicts it.  

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

Actually as long ago as 21,000 years before the present.

[ERayR]

Mormonmaniac sounds like you, he says "there are too many unknowns" 

 

 

 

 

You really have no idea what I am like.

[JLHPROF]

Just curious - if the ruins of a city that could be positively identified as a Book of Mormon city were found, what would be the result.

 

Given the account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, if it WERE proven that an ancient city, say, Zarahemla, actually existed, would that cause people to acknowledge the divine origins?

Or would people find some other way to explain how Joseph actually wrote of a previously undiscovered, unrecorded city?

 

Would it actually convince people of Mormonism if concrete evidence of Nephite/Lamanite/Jaredite civilizations was found?

Or would more excuses be made?

[tagriffy]

Just curious - if the ruins of a city that could be positively identified as a Book of Mormon city were found, what would be the result.

 

Given the account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, if it WERE proven that an ancient city, say, Zarahemla, actually existed, would that cause people to acknowledge the divine origins?

Or would people find some other way to explain how Joseph actually wrote of a previously undiscovered, unrecorded city?

 

Would it actually convince people of Mormonism if concrete evidence of Nephite/Lamanite/Jaredite civilizations was found?

Or would more excuses be made?

 

The only necessary result is that one would have to admit the Book of Mormon has a historical basis. Possibly one might also say that supernatural entities exist, but even that is not a given. Moroni could essentially be a long-lived extraterrestrial, involving no particular supernatural elements. And in any case, if one allows Moroni is a supernatural being, there is nothing that forces us to believe he is necessary benign. I believe somewhere in this thread someone said something an Evangelical author positing Satan as the source of things that couldn't otherwise be explained in Joseph's context. If Book of Mormon historicity were definitively settled, it wouldn't settle the question of whether the book's origin were divine or demonic.

 

While the Book of Mormon and Mormonism are interrelated, they are still distinct things. One can accept the Book of Mormon is historical without necessarily accepting the ideas it presents are true. Maybe there really was a Lehi, but that doesn't in itself prove Lehi's teaching about the Fall of Adam is also true. And it certainly says nothing about ideas present in Mormonism that are not (clearly) found in the Book of Mormon (e.g., eternal progression).

 

Even more to the point, even if the Book of Mormon proves Mormonism true, we'd still have to deal with the question of which Mormonism is true. The Brighamites? The Josephites? The Hendrickites? The Bickertonites? The Cutlerites? The Strangites?

 

In short, if the Book of Mormon is historical, we would still have a boatload of questions to wade through, and it wouldn't be a matter of simply "making excuses."

[Mormonmaniac]

It is you who are making that assumption in the absence of any evidence for huge distances.  As I have pointed out, the Olmec stayed within a very small area, despite the greatness of their civilization.  Were we to accept your assumptions, the Olmec must have spread far and wide throughout North America.  But that is contrary to fact.  We need to live in the real world, not a construct based on fantasy.

I believe the Olmec were just one group of people related to most other cultures surrounding them. It's not hard nor a fantasy to see the similarities between the Olmec and Maya. In fact, they were probably the same people separated by hundreds of years.

[Robert F. Smith]

The only necessary result is that one would have to admit the Book of Mormon has a historical basis. Possibly one might also say that supernatural entities exist, but even that is not a given. Moroni could essentially be a long-lived extraterrestrial, involving no particular supernatural elements. And in any case, if one allows Moroni is a supernatural being, there is nothing that forces us to believe he is necessary benign. I believe somewhere in this thread someone said something an Evangelical author positing Satan as the source of things that couldn't otherwise be explained in Joseph's context. If Book of Mormon historicity were definitively settled, it wouldn't settle the question of whether the book's origin were divine or demonic.

 

While the Book of Mormon and Mormonism are interrelated, they are still distinct things. One can accept the Book of Mormon is historical without necessarily accepting the ideas it presents are true. Maybe there really was a Lehi, but that doesn't in itself prove Lehi's teaching about the Fall of Adam is also true. And it certainly says nothing about ideas present in Mormonism that are not (clearly) found in the Book of Mormon (e.g., eternal progression).

 

Even more to the point, even if the Book of Mormon proves Mormonism true, we'd still have to deal with the question of which Mormonism is true. The Brighamites? The Josephites? The Hendrickites? The Bickertonites? The Cutlerites? The Strangites?

 

In short, if the Book of Mormon is historical, we would still have a boatload of questions to wade through, and it wouldn't be a matter of simply "making excuses."

I agree generally with you here.  Some people tend to oversimplify the issues.

[tagriffy]

You are certainly entitled to read the text in whatever way you wish, preconceptions and all, but you do need to own up to that.  My recommendation is that you read the text more professionally, say in the way suggested by David Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis - Deuteronomy (SLC: Kofford Books, 2014).

 

 

 

I am well aware of the school of thought known as Canonical Criticism, which concerns itself only with the received text.  To me that seems like a game of "let's pretend" that there is only the synchronic text, and pointedly ignore the diachronic way in which that text came into existence, or any geographical or archeological reality which might be brought to bear.  That way the Canon is set, as is the liturgy (Prayer Book).  That may be well for purposes of worship, or for analysis of the intentions of the final redactor(s), but it is no basis for analysis of reality -- such as you are discussing here.

 

<snip>

If that were the case, you would not feel compelled to make the Flood a worldwide phenomenon.  This is also the place where your refusal to consider the diachronic text comes into play, and where Bokovoy could be of most help to you.

 

 

While it is true that there are a great many aspects of the canonical Flood story in Genesis which would lead the casual reader to believe that it had to have been worldwide in intent, this assumes that there is one biblical Flood story, which is false.  Different Flood legends have been combined into one by a redactor (who did not see the Flood), the seams are there for any scholar to see, leading any fairminded person to conclude that there are mutually contradictory versions of the Flood story combined into one.  This is what I have been urging you to face in reading Bokovoy on the subject.

 

Moreover, the biblical Flood story is very late (even if not as late as that of Deucalion), and is preceded by several Sumero-Akkadian and Hurrian versions, each with its own take on certain details.  This even if we do not consider the worldwide instances of the legend.  Here we must ask whether the Flood story is (in any of these cases) meant to be taken in some figurative or ritual sense, rather than as a science text or purely historical account.  It had long since become a legend before it appeared in a Hebrew text.  Thus, it is not relevant to appeal to those who could not read the text in Hebrew for the past several millennia, and any translation will typically reflect a current cultural appraisal anyhow.

 

Now that I have read Bokovoy's book, I have to admit confusion about how anything there parleys into an argument the Noachian flood is pictured as local. In particular, Bokovoy says that a diachronic analysis is about establishing the (relative) dating of the texts (p. 76), which doesn't seem to have anything to do with what the text is picturing. I thought perhaps you were saying one of the sources was picturing a local flood, or that both were picturing a local flood and it was only when they were combined that a picture of a worldwide flood emerges. But that doesn't seem to be the case because both J and P seem to be picturing a worldwide individually as well. So what am I missing here?