Swords Cankered with Rust...How Exactly do Wooden Swords Rust?

[Johnnie Cake]

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

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11 And again, they have brought swords, the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust; and there is no one in the land that is able to interpret the language or the engravings that are on the plates. Therefore I said unto thee: Canst thou translate?

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

[JAHS]

A pretty good article on this at Jeff Lindsay's site. Do a search for the word "rust" on the page. One point made is that the word "rust" need not apply exclusively to metals. 

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_metals.shtml#laban

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

First of all, sounds like an opinion (as we know that ore is everywhere) but I am sure they had some sort of metal...which of course will rust. Also it not all had them, that would account for wooden swords. Also, it is a translation where often words would be replaced with whatever works as a description. 

[JLHPROF]

19 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Well, first these would be Jaredite sword remnants, not Nephite.  And Ether 7:9 tells us "Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him;"

Also if they were found by Limhi's people with the 24 Jaredite plates around 120 BC they would have been lying going to waste minimally since the Jaredites ended nearly 500 years previous.

So steel swords laying around for half a millennia...yeah, probably rusted.

 

[JAHS]

6 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

So steel swords laying around for half a millennia...yeah, probably rusted.

And of course what we call steel would not be the same as what they had then. Even the Bible mentions both iron and steel (Job 20: 24) at a time before such metals were thought to be used. 

[JLHPROF]

57 minutes ago, JAHS said:

And of course what we call steel would not be the same as what they had then. Even the Bible mentions both iron and steel (Job 20: 24) at a time before such metals were thought to be used. 

A quick google says that "steel" in various forms has existed from well before the time of the Jaredites.  Even if they were just iron, and not iron alloyed with another metal, the scripture says they had metal swords and then that those metal swords 500 years later were rusted out.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

The first problem is that you didn't read carefully, Johnnie (the same problem frequently encountered when anti-Bible critics simply grab a verse and read it in English without having any idea of context).  The swords mentioned are not "Nephite" swords.  They are Jaredite.

Your second problem is that you failed to cite your source:  Who told you that these Jaredite swords were made of wood?

While it is true that the Conquistadores actually described Mesoamerican macanas or macquahuitls as "swords," even though they were made of wood with obsidian blades, it is also true that the Olmecs had large quantities of iron and used it.  Swords made of iron would have rusted the traditional way, and are rarely recovered after thousands of years.  That doesn't give us any final answers, but it does broaden our perspective on this issue.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

And of course what we call steel would not be the same as what they had then. Even the Bible mentions both iron and steel (Job 20: 24) at a time before such metals were thought to be used. 

Actually, high carbon steel was already being manufactured and used centuries before the classical biblical period.  The Philistines, for example, already had a monopoly on that kind of blacksmithing while the Israelites were still using bronze weapons.  Once King David had access to steel weapons that monopoly was gone and the Philistines began losing the war.

[mfbukowski]

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THE PHILISTINES AND IRON TECHNOLOGY'�

Against this backdrop, iron technology developed. Iron had existed in some form in the Aegean (Greek) world for some time. One of the migrations to the Middle East during the thirteenth century BC involved an Aegean people,the Philistines. Scholars don't know for certain that the Philistines invented iron technology, but they did make the most effective use of it (e.g., they developed a process that included leaving iron in the fire long enough to absorb the carbon from firewood to form another, more malleable form of iron/steel). This superior metal so revolutionized life that it gave its name to the next 600 years:the Iron Age.

Whoever had this metal could produce superior tools and weapons, leaving other societies behind in the "dark ages" of stone and bronze. Iron was to the biblical world what nuclear energy or the computer is to ours. It determined who would dominate and who would be relegated to the fringes of world events. Iron revolutionized how people lived: how much land they could plow, how much stone they could shape, how much wood they could cut. And it changed warfare to the same degree gunpowder did centuries later.

The Philistines were masters at iron technology. They developed it, and they protected it so others could not use it. Since the Philistines lived on the coastal plain by the international trade route, they also could influence the world (a mission God had intended for the Israelites). As a result, the Philistine culture with its pagan values dominated the Near East during the early Iron Age, much as Western nations shape the culture of developing countries today. The Bible confirms this fact: "Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, 'Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears!'...So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand" (1 Sam. 13:19-22). Today, archaeologists find iron artifacts at most Philistine-Israelite sites from this period, but weapons are found only at Philistine sites.

 

THE ISRAELITES AND IRON TECHNOLOGY'�

A fascinating trend is appearing in the latest archaeological research. While not all archaeologists agree, evidence indicates that the Israelites acquired iron technology about the time David became king. Samuel anointed David when David was still a boy (1 Sam. 16), and God used him to destroy Goliath as a threat to Israel (1 Sam. 17). King Saul was jealous of the success of the charismatic young David and sought to kill him several times (1 Sam. 18-26). A desperate David moved in with Achish, the Philistine king of Gath. This pagan ruler gave David the city of Ziklag, where David lived for 16 months (1 Sam. 27-29). After Saul's death, David left the Philistine territory for Hebron in Judah (2 Sam. 2). He reigned as king of Judah for seven years, then moved to Jerusalem to become king of Israel (2 Sam. 5).

Some scholars believe that David (or one of his people) learned the secret of iron technology while he was with the Philistines (1 Sam. 27-29), and through it, he solidified his kingship and removed the Philistines as a threat to God's people. The Israelites eventually became the dominant culture, making good use of the new technology. Whether their dominance gained them the technology or whether the technology caused them to be superior is debatable, but the two are related.

Iron technology enabled David to destroy his enemies. But without God's hand upon him, he could not have been as successful as he was. Iron technology was one of the means by which God blessed David and provided a people, a nation, and a kingly pattern for the coming Son of David.

 

 

https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/the-latest-technology

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David (/ˈdeɪvɪd/; Hebrew: דָּוִד, Modern David, Tiberian Dāwîḏ;ISO 259-3 Dawid; Ancient Greek: Δαυίδ; Latin: Davidus, David) was the second king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, reigning c.1010-970 BCE.[2] According to the New Testament, he was an ancestor of Jesus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Pa Pa said:

First of all, sounds like an opinion (as we know that ore is everywhere) but I am sure they had some sort of metal...which of course will rust. Also it not all had them, that would account for wooden swords. Also, it is a translation where often words would be replaced with whatever works as a description. 

 

 

Quote

 

On metal, patina is a coating of various chemical compounds such as oxides, carbonates, sulfides, or sulfates formed on the surface during exposure to atmospheric elements (oxygen, rain, acid rain, carbon dioxide, sulfur-bearing compounds), a common example of which is rust which forms on iron or steel when exposed to oxygen. Patina also refers to accumulated changes in surface texture and colour that result from normal use of an object such as a coin or a piece of furniture over time.[2]

Archaeologists also use the term "patina" to refer to a corticated layer that develops over time that is due to a range of complex factors onflint tools and ancient stone monuments.[1] This has led stone tool analysts in recent times to generally prefer the term "cortification" as a better term to describe the process than "patination".[3]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina

As always it is the ambiguity of language in play

One would think that saying once "AW- language is ambiguous- who knows what those words in such ancient times and in such a different culture were referring to?"  but no.

We have to do it for every single word I guess.

Surely critic should be able to come up with better arguments than this silliness.

Not to mention that the BOM is a spiritual book, and history is at least secondary or even farther down the ladder of importance.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

Well, first these would be Jaredite sword remnants, not Nephite.  And Ether 7:9 tells us "Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him;"

Also if they were found by Limhi's people with the 24 Jaredite plates around 120 BC they would have been lying going to waste minimally since the Jaredites ended nearly 500 years previous.

So steel swords laying around for half a millennia...yeah, probably rusted.

 

Or they could have been iron

Or even bronze if "patination" is what is meant by "rust" since "rust" is A FORM of patination.

And then there is what MASH has to say about this

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705385480/Michael-R-Ash-Nephis-bow.html?pg=all

 

Edited June 2, 2016 by mfbukowski

[ERayR]

5 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

However, it does explain why none have been found.  They all rusted away. 

[mnn727]

6 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Have you been told this by the F.P. and the Q of 12?  Or by some Sunday School or Seminary teacher? 

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Ask the person who told you that because I have no idea.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

In fairness to you, I have seen apologists make this argument many times, and it comes from this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl

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A macuahuitl ([maːˈkʷawit͡ɬ] (singular)[1]) is a wooden sword with obsidian blades. The name is derived from the Nahuatl language. Its sides are embedded with prismatic blades traditionally made from obsidian, famous for producing an edge far sharper than even high quality steel razor blades.[2]

The weapon was used by many different civilizations in Mesoamerica including the Aztec,Mayan, Mixtec and Purépecha. The macuahuitl was the standard close combat weapon together with the Tepoztli and the long range spear thrower Atlatl. This weapon was used also during the campaigns of the Spaniards in Mexico by their Tlaxcalan allies.

 

In fact, this from Fair, Matt Roper, no less:

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Matthew Roper: "the Mesoamerican weapon the macuahuitl fits the criteria for the Book of Mormon "sword"

Matthew Roper,

Recent scholarship on Book of Mormon warfare suggests that the Mesoamerican weapon the macuahuitl fits the criteria for the Book of Mormon "sword."1 Recent critics of this position have argued that the comparison is faulty. The macuahuitl, they argue, was merely a club studded with obsidian.2 "Such flexible interpretations," insists one recent critic, "suggest a lack of methodological rigor on the part of those already certain of the Book of Mormon's ancient historicity."3 It is noteworthy that early Chroniclers of Mesoamerican culture such as Duran4 and Clavijero5 unashamedly describe this weapon as a sword. Modern Mesoamerican historians commonly use similar terminology.6 In order to shed additional light on the issue I have provided extracts from Spanish accounts of those who encountered this weapon in battle. As these examples clearly demonstrate, these witnesses almost universally describe the macuahuitl as a "sword" and in some cases these same witnesses distinguish between several kinds of swords. 

 

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Warfare/Weapons/Swords

I may be a sap but I couldn't just leave it there.  But the above is a persuasive explanation of the arguments pro and con.  But the argument is still semantic in nature and to me, proves nothing.  It's just that there are MANY possible explanations including the arguments here in the Roper article.

There are always a hundred ways to interpret anything, and I see these problems as totally semantic.  They had weapons that killed people, and those weapons deteriorated with time.

So what?  What difference does it make?

Edited June 2, 2016 by mfbukowski

[theplains]

On 01/06/2016 at 3:18 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Not sure.  But Ether 14:1 even has weapons disappearing overnight because of the curse on
the land.

Regards,
Jim

[Ahab]

On 6/1/2016 at 0:18 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

Mosiah 8:11 reads:

I've been told that the Nephite swords weren't metal but made of wood with sharp pieces of rock implanted in them...I'm just curious how these wooden swords rust exactly?

Thank you for providing the lemons from which others have made lemonade. 

[JarMan]

My question is how the dry bones Limhi's search party found hadn't decomposed after hundreds of years. The environment was able to cause the hilts of the swords to disappear but not human bones?

[Robert F. Smith]

30 minutes ago, JarMan said:

My question is how the dry bones Limhi's search party found hadn't decomposed after hundreds of years. The environment was able to cause the hilts of the swords to disappear but not human bones?

Several answers can be found in an online Physics Forum, at https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/do-bones-decay-and-if-so-how.244429/ ,

Quote

Yes, bones decay. Otherwise we would be sitting on a huge pile of bones from all the million years of life. Bones are basically a composite of protein and minerals. The time it takes for bones to decay entirely depends on intrinsic and extrinsic factors, . . .

When bodies are buried in boggy soils, the tannins in the soil water tan the skin, and after a while the skin is preserved and the bone gone. This can happen fairly quickly. In this case the acidity of the soil actually dissoves bone mineral. When bodies are buried in very dry regions, and exposed to salts like natron, most tissues, including bone, can persist for thousands of years. Egyptian mummies come to mind. There are skeletal remains of early homo sapiens from the Northern Sahara desert region - ~90000 years or more that apparently have not been remineralized (fossilized).

.

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. . within a year all that is usually left is the skeleton and teeth, with traces of the tissues on them - it takes 40 to 50 years for the bones to become dry and brittle in a coffin. In soil of neutral acidity, bones may last for hundreds of years, while acid peaty soil gradually dissolves the bones.   https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070804095320AAabFgu .

 

[Damien the Leper]

Speculating on metal is a dead end.

[JarMan]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Several answers can be found in an online Physics Forum, at https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/do-bones-decay-and-if-so-how.244429/ ,

.

 

This doesn't really address the issue. Bones, in almost every natural environment, will decay. So the challenge is to explain what was different about this environment that allowed them to survive so long. If that's not hard enough there also needs to be an explanation of why-simultaneously in the same environment-the hilts perished and the blades rusted. 

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

This doesn't really address the issue. Bones, in almost every natural environment, will decay. So the challenge is to explain what was different about this environment that allowed them to survive so long. If that's not hard enough there also needs to be an explanation of why-simultaneously in the same environment-the hilts perished and the blades rusted. 

Steel and bones are not made of the same materials, and it seems obvious that they may react differently to the same conditions. If you believe that steel and bones must decay at the same rate in a given environment, perhaps you could research the problem and find scientific authorities that would agree with you.  And then you could beat us over the head with it!  Wouldn't that be more fun than refusing to accept scientific information that others provide to you?  Just because you don't want it to be true, because it doesn't support your prejudices?

Or, you could do some experiments!  Take a cow femur and a piece of bar steel.  Bury them near each other in the same kind of conditions that are featured in Mesoamerica and wait two hundred years.  Dig them up and see how they have fared.  Or perhaps some other people have done this for you already?

Edited June 4, 2016 by Stargazer

[Robert F. Smith]

49 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Steel and bones are not made of the same materials, and it seems obvious that they may react differently to the same conditions. If you believe that steel and bones must decay at the same rate in a given environment, perhaps you could research the problem and find scientific authorities that would agree with you.  And then you could beat us over the head with it!  Wouldn't that be more fun than refusing to accept scientific information that others provide to you?  Just because you don't want it to be true, because it doesn't support your prejudices?

Or, you could do some experiments!  Take a cow femur and a piece of bar steel.  Bury them near each other in the same kind of conditions that are featured in Mesoamerica and wait two hundred years.  Dig them up and see how they have fared.  Or perhaps some other people have done this for you already?

Exactly, and this is what the FBI does on its famous Body Farm in Tennessee, https://www.fbi.gov/news/videos/fbi-trains-at-the-body-farm/view .  They take donated bodies and bury them, or simply place them on the ground, and come back periodically to check them for states of decomp, or excavate them for training purposes, as in that video.

[mfbukowski]

I just had the wonderful job of taking apart the internal workings of a toilet tank that had not been touched in probably 20 years

Many of the brass parts crumbled away to nothing.  Screwdrivers were useless.  You put in in the slot and it crumbles into green dust.

If anyone thinks brass or bronze does not "rust" they are highly mistaken.

[bcuzbcuz]

On 2 June 2016 at 0:45 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

 

While it is true that the Conquistadores actually described Mesoamerican macanas or macquahuitls as "swords," even though they were made of wood with obsidian blades, it is also true that the Olmecs had large quantities of iron and used it.  Swords made of iron would have rusted the traditional way, and are rarely recovered after thousands of years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, is there any evidence, anywhere, that the Olmec culture used their iron ore for anything other than mirrors? http://www.hclips.com/get_file/6/6cd8cfbe7de560a354119e368af2484d/57000/57690/57690_hq.mp4/?br=183 

"The earliest stone mirrors in Mesoamerica pre-date the rise of the Olmec civilization, with examples being dated as far back as the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.^[3] From early in Mesoamerica's history, the use of iron ore mirrors was associated with a hereditary elite class.^[29] At Paso de la Amada, a Mokaya site in the Soconusco region of southern Chiapas, iron ore mirrors were excavated that have been dated to between 1400 and 1100 BC.^[30] A Mokaya tomb dating to the earlier part of this period was excavated at the Olmec enclave of Cantón Corralito. The tomb contained the remains of an elite status woman accompanied by an adult male and a child; the woman had a large flat iron ore mirror on her chest. At present, it is not known if the remains are those of local Mokoya or of Olmecs from the Gulf coast.^[31] About the same time at Tlapacoya in the Valley of Mexico, the Tlatilco culture was using imported mirrors crafted from jade.^[32] During the Early and Middle Preclassic periods (approximately 1500 to 500 BC) the Olmecs fashioned mirrors from iron ore, including minerals such as hematite, ilmenite and magnetite. The Olmecs preferred to manufacture concave mirrors; this gave the mirror the properties of reflecting an inverted and reversed image. Larger concave mirrors could be used to light fires. These early mirrors were manufactured from single pieces of stone and were therefore of small size, rarely exceeding 15 centimetres (5.9 in) across.^[3] Mirrors were manufactured by using sand or some other abrasive material such as hematite powder to polish the iron ore until it produced a highly reflective surface.^[33]"

Is there any evidence that iron was used for weapons? Yes, I know iron/steel rusts. But the idea that rust disappears is an idea that only works for those who don't understand the conservation of matter or mass. A steel or iron sword may rust but the soil around it still contains the iron. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust

" Several forms of rust are distinguishable both visually and by spectroscopy, and form under different circumstances.^[1] Rust consists of hydrated iron(III) oxides Fe₂O₃·nH₂O and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO(OH), Fe(OH)₃)."

In Finland, Sweden and Germany swords made of iron and low grade steel corode but leave either small rusted blades or iron oxides (or both). Have any similar iron finds been reported anywhere in Central or South America?

 

 

 

 

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