Article claiming possibly Lehi's family never came to America?

[Johnnie Cake]

1 minute ago, Zakuska said:

Margaret Barker would disagree.

http://www.joehunt.org/joseph-smith-margaret-barker-talk.html

 

 

Thanks for sharing

[volgadon]

13 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Your point?  I provided answers to your inquirey

Answers to some of my inquiries. Would an archaeologist be able to recognise you as a touristor as a midlander, and how is the material culture of the past generation or two significantly distinct from your current home?

[Zakuska]

On 1/16/2016 at 5:36 PM, VideoGameJunkie said:

I do wonder what happened to all the swords and weapons from the great wars.

Recycled. Pounded into plows and pruning hooks as Isaiah would say. 

Edited January 21, 2016 by Zakuska

[Johnnie Cake]

17 minutes ago, volgadon said:

Answers to some of my inquiries. Would an archaeologist be able to recognise you as a touristor as a midlander, and how is the material culture of the past generation or two significantly distinct from your current home?

Specific day to day life activity  is beyond archeology...but my existence would be fairly easy to establish...but then I believe that you knew that already

[Avatar4321]

8 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Both of those supposed BoM evidences have been completely debunked and discredited as far as I'm concerned...but its ok if you still value them to support your belief

really? I highly doubt that but the fact that you don't find evidence convincing doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It would be prudent to stop pretending it does.

 

[Johnnie Cake]

22 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

really? I highly doubt that but the fact that you don't find evidence convincing doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It would be prudent to stop pretending it does.

 

Perhaps a better way for me to frame it is that I didn't find the arguments for NHM compelling or convincing...particularly in light of the counter arguments.  Avatar4321, I don't want to go down that tangent in this thread but perhaps if you want to start a new thread regarding NHM ... we could discuss it there

Edited January 21, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[volgadon]

31 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Specific day to day life activity  is beyond archeology...but my existence would be fairly easy to establish...but then I believe that you knew that already

What do you think pottery shards are if not part of everyday life, but that was not what I was asking.

[thesometimesaint]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Excellent question and I applaud your logic.  Yes it did, has did Jericho...both of which have only in recent history been discovered.  Suggesting that the famed city of Zarahemla is just sitting out there awaiting discovery...which it could be. 

Troy had been rumored to exist and even mentioned in Homer's Odyssey...yet up until 1870 Troy remained a fable.  But unlike the Nephites, the civilization that Troy was claimed to be part of has never been in question and left all kinds of evidence of their existence.

So archaeologists had over 2000 years to find Troy, and Jericho. Along with the tall tales of Homer, and stories in the Bible, but they didn't . I think that should be a cautionary tale of putting your faith, or lack thereof, in archaeology.

[Johnnie Cake]

19 minutes ago, volgadon said:

What do you think pottery shards are if not part of everyday life, but that was not what I was asking.

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Would an archaeologist be able to recognise you as a touristor as a midlander

Depends on the evidence...my DNA certainly narrows me down to  specific locational parameters

 

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,and how is the material culture of the past generation or two significantly distinct from your current home?

It would be near impossible for an archeologist to detect the nuances of past generational influences in my life...but there would be clues of it

Don't know where you're going with this but there you go...

[VideoGameJunkie]

Did the surviving Lamanites destroy every bit of artifacts that the Nephites left behind and bury all the bodies from the wars? Why wouldn't God want there to be artifacts found that prove the BOM people's existence?

[thesometimesaint]

7 minutes ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

Did the surviving Lamanites destroy every bit of artifacts that the Nephites left behind and bury all the bodies from the wars? Why wouldn't God want there to be artifacts found that prove the BOM people's existence?

They had over a thousand years to repurpose them. While God can do whatever he wants. It was/is not unusual for bodies to be looted and left to rot after a battle.

[Johnnie Cake]

57 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

So archaeologists had over 2000 years to find Troy, and Jericho. Along with the tall tales of Homer, and stories in the Bible, but they didn't . I think that should be a cautionary tale of putting your faith, or lack thereof, in archaeology.

Probably important to add...that the sight which later became know as Troy was a known sight in 1870...archeologist just had not attributed it to Troy until 1870...but as I stated in an earlier post...the existence of the civilization that inhabited Troy has never been in dispute

[Gray]

2 hours ago, Avatar4321 said:

so you're saying an intelligent man who becomes convinced that the historical setting of the Book of Mormon is completely accurate is going to ignore the nature of the book, it's narrative, and the means by which it came about?

I cannot see how anyone finding the Book of Mormon to be factually true could ignore that and remain an honest person or continue to claim any academic authority.

It does not follow that if the BOM is historical that the SLC-based LDS Church is "true" in the way typically described by members of the church (usually meaning the doctrine is correct and the ordinances are uniquely authorized by God). It would be a curiosity but no one would really be compelled to automatically affiliate with one of the many churches that use the BOM as scripture. 

[thesometimesaint]

1 minute ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Probably important to add...that the sight which later became know as Troy was a known sight in 1870...archeologist just had not attributed it to Troy until 1870...but as I stated in an earlier post...the existence of the civilization that inhabited Troy has never been in dispute

Actually it was disputed at various times over the last few millennia. BTW few seriously doubt that the Maya existed, but the name they went by is still unknown.

[Johnnie Cake]

21 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Actually it was disputed at various times over the last few millennia. BTW few seriously doubt that the Maya existed, but the name they went by is still unknown.

...but we do know that it wasn't Nephite

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Perhaps a better way for me to frame it is that I didn't find the arguments for NHM compelling or convincing...

Which is a perfectly reasonable response on your part. As is, by the way, your lack of belief in the existence of Nephites anywhere in the New World.

Your conclusions become problematic for me only when you start pretending that accepted academic enquiry somehow requires an intelligent person to reach the same conclusions as you. It doesn't. And in fact, you've repeatedly demonstrated in this thread such a lack of understanding of basic archaeological principles, practices and issues that one wonders how academically informed your conclusions really are. The sorts of evidence you've been demanding, for example, seem based more on your fantasies about the past and how we understand it than on any familiarity with how professionals actually find, analyse and interpret remains of material culture.

[ERayR]

20 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Assuming the Book of Mormon civilizations existed....surly they left some evidence of their existence right?  A garbage dump, a building foundation, one of their cement buildings, a zenon of gold...something? Anything?

 

You have no idea what a Nephite artifact would look like yet you are sure none has been discovered.  Am I missing something? 

[ERayR]

14 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

...but we do know that it wasn't Nephite

 

And how do you know this?

[Avatar4321]

8 minutes ago, ERayR said:

 

And how do you know this?

magic?

[Avatar4321]

On 1/16/2016 at 9:49 AM, Brant Gardner said:

Of course, part of the problem is positing a Hebrew culture in the American setting. That is a different question from positing a family from Israel in an American setting. I can't see any logical model of immigration where a small people enter a larger population and succeed in retaining previous cultural styles for very long. That would be particularly true when the plants, animals, and climate are completely different. Human history argues against positing a Hebrew culture--even if we do posit Lehi's family in the Americas.

I would argue Nephi's statements that he did not teach his children according to the understanding of the Jews would support the idea that looking for a Hebrew culture would be out of place.

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, Avatar4321 said:

I would argue Nephi's statements that he did not teach his children according to the understanding of the Jews would support the idea that looking for a Hebrew culture would be out of place.

Sure ok...he taught them in the ways of the people they supposedly merged with yet still maintained a Christian/Jewish worldview while living amoung pagans...makes perfect sense

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Which is a perfectly reasonable response on your part. As is, by the way, your lack of belief in the existence of Nephites anywhere in the New World.

Your conclusions become problematic for me only when you start pretending that accepted academic enquiry somehow requires an intelligent person to reach the same conclusions as you. It doesn't. And in fact, you've repeatedly demonstrated in this thread such a lack of understanding of basic archaeological principles, practices and issues that one wonders how academically informed your conclusions really are. The sorts of evidence you've been demanding, for example, seem based more on your fantasies about the past and how we understand it than on any familiarity with how professionals actually find, analyse and interpret remains of material culture.

Honestly I completely respect opinions that conflict with mine. But I am trying to understand how intelligent informed believers maintain belief, something I was unable to do. 

With respect to archeology, I'm not an archeologist, but it's been a long time interest of mine, while your characterization of my grasp of that particular science is mostly hyperbole and formed through your limited interaction with me though my posts, I tend to attack the argument rather than the person.  If, I have as you say,  demonstrated a basic lack understanding of archeology, show me where rather than taking the easy out of attacking thr perceived deficiencies you seem to find in my conclusions 

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I tend to attack the argument rather than the person.

Mate, I was worried that you'd interpret my posts as ad hominems. That is certainly not my intention. This has nothing to do with you as a person. For all I know, you're a better man than I am.

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If, I have as you say,  demonstrated a basic lack understanding of archeology, show me where rather than taking the easy out of attacking thr perceived deficiencies you seem to find in my conclusions 

It is the very deficiencies in what you've argued that demonstrate your lack of understanding. Please go back and read what I and others like volgadon have written. Each post has been an attempt to show you where you're getting basic things wrong.

Problem A is that you've created a fantasy scenario -- if Nephites really existed, then we should find X, Y and Z -- and then attempted to use the absence of X, Y and Z as conclusive evidence that Nephites didn't really exist. But such an exercise falls completely outside the realm of standard archaeology, which instead looks at evidence that does exist and then tries to interpret it in light of what else is known and assumed.

Problem B is that your imagined X, Y and Z are based almost entirely on misunderstandings of things like human migrations, cultural assimilation, cultural appropriation, the interaction between trade and technology, etc. Experts still can't decide where exactly Lapita pottery first appeared -- a topic on which our journal recently published -- but it would seem to have been somewhere around the Solomons (probably the Bismarck Archipelago). We can then trace the apparent spread of this pottery style eastward into the Pacific. But we still have no idea who the originators of this pottery style were. We don't know if the style arose independently in the Bismarcks or was influenced by possibly similar pottery styles found in the islands to the west of New Guinea. Furthermore, we don't know if the eastward spread of this pottery style throughout Polynesia occurred because 'Lapita peoples' (we actually have no name or identity for them) migrated and took the technology with them, because proto-Polynesians picked up this technology by passing through the Bismarcks on their way eastward (or maybe stayed and created a new society that later spread), because of inter-island trade (in which case, we can only guess further who the traders would have been), and so on.

In short, your demands for evidence are based upon suppositions that simply don't match the growing consensus amongst prehistorians (to use a more inclusive term) that material culture =/= ethnicity =/= descent (in its genealogical sense).

Edited January 22, 2016 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

By the way, none of these points should be seen as compelling reasons to believe.

But they do problematise some of the reasons you seem to have embraced in order to bolster your disbelief. Your disbelief is still fully rational, however, and puts you in excellent company. But better grasping the actual contours of the academic landscape may help you 'understand how intelligent informed believers maintain belief'.
 

Edited January 22, 2016 by Hamba Tuhan

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Mate, I was worried that you'd interpret my posts as ad hominems. That is certainly not my intention. This has nothing to do with you as a person. For all I know, you're a better man than I am.

It is the very deficiencies in what you've argued that demonstrate your lack of understanding. Please go back and read what I and others like volgadon have written. Each post has been an attempt to show you where you're getting basic things wrong.

Problem A is that you've created a fantasy scenario -- if Nephites really existed, then we should find X, Y and Z -- and then attempted to use the absence of X, Y and Z as conclusive evidence that Nephites didn't really exist. But such an exercise falls completely outside the realm of standard archaeology, which instead looks at evidence that does exist and then tries to interpret it in light of what else is known and assumed.

Problem B is that your imagined X, Y and Z are based almost entirely on misunderstandings of things like human migrations, cultural assimilation, cultural appropriation, the interaction between trade and technology, etc. Experts still can't decide where exactly Lapita pottery first appeared -- a topic on which our journal recently published -- but it would seem to have been somewhere around the Solomons. We can then trace the apparent spread of this pottery style eastward into Pacific. But we still have no idea who the originators of this pottery style were. We don't know if the style arose independently in the Solomons or was influenced by possibly similar pottery styles found in the islands to the west of New Guinea. Furthermore, we don't know if the eastward spread of this pottery style throughout Polynesia occurred because 'Lapita peoples' (we actually have no name or identity for them) migrated and took the technology with them, because proto-Polynesians picked up this technology by passing through the Solomons on their way eastward (or maybe stayed and created a new society that later spread), because of inter-island trade (in which case, we can only guess further who the traders would have been), and so on.

In short, your demands for evidence are based upon suppositions that simply don't match the growing consensus amongst prehistorians (to use a more inclusive term) that material culture =/= ethnicity =/= descent (in its genealogical sense).

Thanks for your reply.  But I have to admit it did make me chuckle when you said "I've created a fantasy scenario". We are talking about the same claimed nephite civilization right?   Sorry but it did make me chuckle.  I think we're closer to agreeing than you may think. I completely agree with you that standard archeology looks at evidence that does exist and then draws conclusions based on what is known...which has me Gobsmacked that you, a smart educated person, have found support for your beliefs in nonexistent evidence. Whose drawing conclusions and fantasy scenarios?  We need to do lunch, I'll buy

Edited January 22, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[Hamba Tuhan]

14 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Thanks for your reply.

And for yours.

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Sorry but it did make me chuckle.

No need to apologise. I understand.

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...which has me Gobsmacked that you, a smart educated person, have found support for your beliefs in nonexistent evidence

Except that I haven't even looked for support for my beliefs in the nonexistent evidence. I believe for entirely different reasons. I also relate to what the Prophet Joseph said in the King Follett Discourse: 'I don’t blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself'.

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We need to do lunch, I'll buy

I'd happily take you up on the offer, but I strongly suspect we're in different hemispheres.