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

[jkwilliams]

Goodness, Robert. I haven't said your approach is not valid, just that it doesn't work for me. You guys seem to think that is some sort of attack on your intellect and integrity. Smarter, more educated people find apologetic arguments compelling. That should be obvious. 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Enjoyed reading your paper. 

Most of the evidence you present there is not associated with a particular geography and would work just as well for any model. It made me curious to know if there is any substantial evidence for Meso that is unique to Meso, and can't be found in another model. You mentioned writing systems, but that is not unique to Mesoamerica. The Malay model supports not only a writing system but a writing system likely based on Aramaic with some possibilty of Egyptian influence.

The Malay/Burma region is also thick with legends of a lost script and/or a lost golden book that was taken west by a younger "white brother" who will return before the coming of a Messiah. One of the tribes that believes this legend claim to be descendents of Joseph through Manasseh, and have been officially recognized as Jews by the Israeli Knesset. They call themselves Zoram and live in a land they call Zoram. That's about as close to a one to one convergence that you can get. Right? Another tribe is named Kayin which is the Hebrew word for Kenite. They also claim to descend from Manasseh and worship a Supreme God who had a divine son who once visited them, and who will return after the white brother returns with the golden book. I've mentioned these before here. I'm honestly frustrated that apologists dismiss it as an interesting coincidence.

And before you might respond that we cannot consider the Malay model as legitimate because its not in the New World, remember its important not to "foreclose even the possiblity of finding anything before the search has even begun." 

 

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

These are also present in the Malay model, along with an earthquake around 2000 years ago on a faultline that runs from Ammonihah to Bountiful. Also add tribal legends describing a period of darkness around 35 AD when fires could not be lit and dead ancestors returned to visit the living. Elephants, silk, horses, chariots, walled cities, iron swords, towers, textual archives, temples named Mulek, rivers named Sidon, tribes called Zoram, legends of founders coming by boat from the west, golden plates etc. all in the right time period.

I can provide sources if you're interested.

Hi Rajah,

I love your posts because they are very thought provoking and sometimes cause me to do a double take.  I consider your work very important, and you'll notice that K C Kern saw fit to include your geographical correlation in his huge assemblage of data at http://bookofmormononline.net  and at  http://bookofmormon.online/map/malay .

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Bob

Edited June 16, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[bcuzbcuz]

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

These are also present in the Malay model, along with an earthquake around 2000 years ago on a faultline that runs from Ammonihah to Bountiful. Also add tribal legends describing a period of darkness around 35 AD when fires could not be lit and dead ancestors returned to visit the living. Elephants, silk, horses, chariots, walled cities, iron swords, towers, textual archives, temples named Mulek, rivers named Sidon, tribes called Zoram, legends of founders coming by boat from the west, golden plates etc. all in the right time period.

I can provide sources if you're interested.

Many details, from elephants to steel, match to your location theory, but they at the same time negate ALL the details of the story as told by Joseph Smith. His "golden bible", Comorah, Zelph, etc, etc collapse. 

[James Tunney]

27 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 

I dont mean to intrude on your back and forth with john but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?

[bcuzbcuz]

On 15 June 2016 at 6:34 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Maybe you misunderstand:  The premier archeologist in the world on the Olmec, Prof. Michael Coe of Yale, declared that this magnetite pointer (which appeared to have been "machined") was the world's first compass.  He tested it.  If your argument is that he is wrong, then you might want to provide adequate reasons for your rejection of his position.

Magnetite doesn't give any information about East and West other than to point where they aren't. The article I quoted references to the idea that the directions of interest, from Babylon to Egypt, all focused on the rising and the setting of the sun. The idea that "north" or "south" were directions that interested peoples of the Levant has definitely not been established. The article also points out that early cultures, from Asia to Egypt turned to the east as the focus of prayers, etc and that the west was, along with the setting of the sun, the realm of the dead. A compass that points north is of little use. 

Michael Coe may want to call the machined magnetite the first compass, but that's using modern interpretations of a direction that has yet to be proven as a direction of interest in any early culture. 

If you have any articles that display the concepts of north or south for peoples of the Levant I will happily read them.

[bcuzbcuz]

Forget about steel swords. Show me the butter.

We may looking for the wrong things, focusing on iron production, and the ensuing questions of rust and decay. A recent discovery in Ireland by a farmer has highlighted how unexpected materials can survive the ravages of time.

The farmer found a 10 Kg (22lbs) clump of butter. The butter had resisted decay thanks to the acidity of the bog it was found in. The butter has been dated to between 2000 and 2,500 years old.

This find is far from unusal. In 2013, 45 Kg (100 lbs) of bog butter was found in another county of Ireland and has been dated to 5000 years old.

The bogs acidity has preserved the butter, but the bog wasn't used as an ancient refrigerator, rather the cow butter was probably offered to the gods.

Mmmmmm.......butter!!!!

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.3636733/farmer-finds-2-000-year-old-butter-in-irish-bog-1.3636737

Wednesday June 15, 2016

Farmer finds 2,000-year-old butter in Irish bog

Savina Donohoe (left) Andy Halpin, National Museum of Ireland (centre) and Jack Conway, the farmer who found the butter. (Cavan County Museum ) 

 

•  

A farmer from Ireland has stumbled upon a 10 kilogram treasure — butter estimated to be old enough that it could have been on the plate of Caesar Augustus.

"We reckon it can be anywhere from 2000 to 2,500 years old,"  Savina Donohoe, curator for the Cavan County Museum tells As It Happens host Carol Off.

The bog butter, which is made from cows milk is also apparently edible.

"Bogs are a highly acidic environment, the bog was used to preserve things. It was like a refrigerator," Donohoe says.

Bog butter is not an unusual discovery in the bogs of Ireland. The acidity of the bog combined with low oxygen and cool temperatures makes it an ideal way of preserving things. (Cavan County Museum )

Donohoe says she's not curious to give the butter a taste "I certainly did not try and I have no intentions of trying it."

Unlike the sour cream that gets pushed to the back of modern day fridges and forgotten, Donohoe thinks this bog butter, which would have been very luxurious, was not forgotten by the people who put it there.

"The butter we found was buried very deep in the ground. We think it was an offering to the gods," says Donohoe.

The bog butter has been sent to the National Museum in Ireland, as is required when significant finds are made, for study and testing. (Cavan County Museum )

Bog butter is a relatively common find in Ireland. In 2013, 45 kilograms of 5,000-year-old bog butter was found in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Magnetite doesn't give any information about East and West other than to point where they aren't. The article I quoted references to the idea that the directions of interest, from Babylon to Egypt, all focused on the rising and the setting of the sun. The idea that "north" or "south" were directions that interested peoples of the Levant has definitely not been established. The article also points out that early cultures, from Asia to Egypt turned to the east as the focus of prayers, etc and that the west was, along with the setting of the sun, the realm of the dead. A compass that points north is of little use. 

Michael Coe may want to call the machined magnetite the first compass, but that's using modern interpretations of a direction that has yet to be proven as a direction of interest in any early culture. 

If you have any articles that display the concepts of north or south for peoples of the Levant I will happily read them.

Again, a non sequitur from you.  The issue isn't whether some particular culture favors a certain direction, but simply whether a magnetite artifact is the first compass.  Your argument is with Mike Coe, and you have said nothing which would call his rationale into question.  Indeed, your comments on directions in the ancient world are way out of kilter.

The simple fact is that some of the people we are considering, the Isthmus Zapotec, use the term 'gya' "up, above," for "north" (Handbook of Middle American Indians, V:294; cf. Ether 7:5, 14:11); note the similar Classical use of Latin infra hos, "lower down than them," to mean "southward, downstream" (de Vaux, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1971, pp. 202-203).  It even appears to A. J. McDonald (when at the University of Texas at Austin) that ceremonial complexes in the Chiapas Central Depression of southern Mexico parallel "the stem of the Grijalva . . . as if it pointed the way north" (unpublished MS, p. 39).  Local north along the Nile River was based on the very same downstream flow, though alternative solar and astronomical systems could also be used, e.g., the astronomical orientation of Egyptian temples is mentioned by A. R. David, Religious Ritual at Abydos (c. 1300 B.C.) (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1973), pp. vii, 70, citing J. Černý, Ancient Egyptian Religion, p. 114.

A major focus of G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill (Boston:Godine, 1977), is the Circumpolar Stars of God.  In Isaiah 14:12-15 (2 Ne 24:12-15) and the surrounding text, Isaiah is directly referring to and perhaps even quoting from a Canaanite poem on the defeat of Mot or ‘Athtar in his battle with Hadad Ba‘al-Şafon (= ‘Elyon, "The Most High," in Hebrew Religion), and the Heavenly Council -- the members of which are represented as the circumpolar, eternal stars of God, by Isaiah and by Canaanite and Egyptian myth -- is a witness to that defeat.  The site of the battle in the "recesses of the North" (Heb. yarketey Şafon) mentioned in Isa 14:13, refers to the Cosmic and Holy Mountain of Ba‘al-Hadad (Jebel 'el-Aqra`) at the mouth of the Orontes River in North Syria, a kind of Canaanite Olympus.

Indeed, circa 1,500 B.C. - 300 A.D. circumpolar Kochab (β Ursae Minoris, magnitude 2.08) was the North Star closest to the “center” of the night sky (then at declination 83̊.5) – a position now occupied by Polaris (α Ursae Minoris).  Cf. .kokob  at BofAbraham 3:13, “star” = Hebrew kōkāb “star” (Arabic al-kawkab بﻛﻮﻜﻟا), Sumerian MÚL, Akkadian kukkabū (plural Hebrew kōkābīm “stars,” Akkadian kukkabū “star, planet, constellation”; in Job 38:7 the “sons of God “ are in synonymous parallel with “morning stars,” kokebe boqer = bene ̕Elohim; the kokaubeam  of BofA 3:13,16, “stars; great lights,” greatest of which is Kolob).  For it is there that the Morning Stars sang together in joy over the decision of that Divine Council (Job 38:7). Polaris is none other than the “north nail” or “World Nail,” the central peg of the turning mill of time and destiny (the mill of the gods), and the way into and out of the watery abyss of death and hell.

The heavenly court motif, which is recognized by modern scholarship as being the Assembly of the Gods (Isa 40:25-26, Ps 82), is interchangeable with the "banquet of salvation on the World Mountain."  In Hebrew it is termed ‘Adat ’El (Ps 82:1), or Sod, "Heavenly Council; Decision of Council; counsel, secret, mystery" (= Essene/Qumran raz = Iranian/Persian raza = Pauline mysterion), and is the direct corollary of Ugaritic ‘dt.ilm, Phr.ilm, Phr.m‘d, "The Divine Parliament; The Group of the Assembly (of Gods)" (= Sumerian UKKIN = Akkadian Puhrum).   What takes place in the North is of primary interest to everyone, but especially to Israelites.

 

 

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Many details, from elephants to steel, match to your location theory, but they at the same time negate ALL the details of the story as told by Joseph Smith. His "golden bible", Comorah, Zelph, etc, etc collapse. 

Sorry, I'm not very familiar with LDS folklore. Are those stories found in the Book of Mormon? Were they known before the publication of the Book of Mormon?

Edited June 17, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

All maps based on the world's first geography (Ptolemy) are north up, these include all the maps used by Columbus or other navigators who were more interested in going places than they were knowing where Noah's Ark landed or where Saint Gasper's castle was. Most east-up biblical maps (mappa mundi) were not considered to be accurate. I understand them to be more useful as learning devices, something like visual encyclopedias and I assume anyone serious about traveling beyond the Levant would not use them. 

Do you know of any early navigator maps that were completely independent of Ptolemy's north-up geography? Arab traders flipped their maps, but that was for cultural readons done only after they drew their info from existing north-up geographies. 

In any case, from the believers perspective, maps didn't exist in BOM times so whatever orientation(s) they used it was translated into terms we now understand.

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

If you have any articles that display the concepts of north or south for peoples of the Levant I will happily read them.

I was wrong about no maps in BOM times.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps

I'm on my phone so didn't look too closely, but these earliest Babylonian maps seem to be north-up. 

[thesometimesaint]

7 hours ago, James Tunney said:

I dont mean to intrude on your back and forth with john but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?

Pray tell why that would make any difference?

[James Tunney]

2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Pray tell why that would make any difference?

Bias. There's so much riding on the historicity debate that mormon archeologists might have a blind spot to evidence or the lack thereof. The historicity conclusion mist be reached for them.

[thesometimesaint]

8 hours ago, James Tunney said:

Bias. There's so much riding on the historicity debate that mormon archeologists might have a blind spot to evidence or the lack thereof. The historicity conclusion mist be reached for them.

That works both ways. If your starting assumption is that all Mormons archaeologists are incompetent, and/or liars, then no evidence will ever be accepted.

[James Tunney]

45 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

That works both ways. If your starting assumption is that all Mormons archaeologists are incompetent, and/or liars, then no evidence will ever be accepted.

Of course it cuts both ways but in this case the bias issue might be more of an issue with the believers due to the lack of anything concrete to back up historicity. Sure one can argue for a paradigm shift where suddenly something becomes evidence where it wasn't before but it looks like the quest for a paradigm shift is merely born out of a desired outcome.

[jkwilliams]

52 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

That works both ways. If your starting assumption is that all Mormons archaeologists are incompetent, and/or liars, then no evidence will ever be accepted.

I don't know anyone who thinks all Mormon archaeologists are incompetent and/or liars. But it's a nice strawman.

[thesometimesaint]

4 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Of course it cuts both ways but in this case the bias issue might be more of an issue with the believers due to the lack of anything concrete to back up historicity. Sure one can argue for a paradigm shift where suddenly something becomes evidence where it wasn't before but it looks like the quest for a paradigm shift is merely born out of a desired outcome.

Speaking of concrete.

SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_architecture

[thesometimesaint]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't know anyone who thinks all Mormon archaeologists are incompetent and/or liars. But it's a nice strawman.

"but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?".

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

"but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?".

Does believing in the historicity of the Book of Mormon indicate dishonesty or incompetence? Sorry, but I don't know anyone who thinks that. 

[James Tunney]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Does believing in the historicity of the Book of Mormon indicate dishonesty or incompetence? Sorry, but I don't know anyone who thinks that. 

I'm not saying they are dishonest either, but just maybe there is an incentive to see something that isn't there or make a hasty conclusion given how important historicity is.

[thesometimesaint]

26 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Does believing in the historicity of the Book of Mormon indicate dishonesty or incompetence? Sorry, but I don't know anyone who thinks that. 

Didn't say that. I quoted Tunney as saying "but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?".

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, thesometimesaint said:

Didn't say that. I quoted Tunney as saying "but are you aware of any archeologist outside of mormon circles or any non-member archeologist that supports historicity?".

Yes, and? 

[thesometimesaint]

25 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

I'm not saying they are dishonest either, but just maybe there is an incentive to see something that isn't there or make a hasty conclusion given how important historicity is.

Of course historicity is important. Did the ancient city of Troy exist before it was found beginning in 1865?

[bcuzbcuz]

On 17 juni 2016 at 2:06 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

Again, a non sequitur from you.  The issue isn't whether some particular culture favors a certain direction, but simply whether a magnetite artifact is the first compass.  Your argument is with Mike Coe, and you have said nothing which would call his rationale into question.  Indeed, your comments on directions in the ancient world are way out of kilter.

The simple fact is that some of the people we are considering, the Isthmus Zapotec, use the term 'gya' "up, above," for "north" (Handbook of Middle American Indians, V:294; cf. Ether 7:5, 14:11); note the similar Classical use of Latin infra hos, "lower down than them," to mean "southward, downstream" (de Vaux, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 1971, pp. 202-203).  It even appears to A. J. McDonald (when at the University of Texas at Austin) that ceremonial complexes in the Chiapas Central Depression of southern Mexico parallel "the stem of the Grijalva . . . as if it pointed the way north" (unpublished MS, p. 39).  Local north along the Nile River was based on the very same downstream flow, though alternative solar and astronomical systems could also be used, e.g., the astronomical orientation of Egyptian temples is mentioned by A. R. David, Religious Ritual at Abydos (c. 1300 B.C.) (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1973), pp. vii, 70, citing J. Černý, Ancient Egyptian Religion, p. 114.

A major focus of G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill (Boston:Godine, 1977), is the Circumpolar Stars of God.  In Isaiah 14:12-15 (2 Ne 24:12-15) and the surrounding text, Isaiah is directly referring to and perhaps even quoting from a Canaanite poem on the defeat of Mot or ‘Athtar in his battle with Hadad Ba‘al-Şafon (= ‘Elyon, "The Most High," in Hebrew Religion), and the Heavenly Council -- the members of which are represented as the circumpolar, eternal stars of God, by Isaiah and by Canaanite and Egyptian myth -- is a witness to that defeat.  The site of the battle in the "recesses of the North" (Heb. yarketey Şafon) mentioned in Isa 14:13, refers to the Cosmic and Holy Mountain of Ba‘al-Hadad (Jebel 'el-Aqra`) at the mouth of the Orontes River in North Syria, a kind of Canaanite Olympus.

Indeed, circa 1,500 B.C. - 300 A.D. circumpolar Kochab (β Ursae Minoris, magnitude 2.08) was the North Star closest to the “center” of the night sky (then at declination 83̊.5) – a position now occupied by Polaris (α Ursae Minoris).  Cf. .kokob  at BofAbraham 3:13, “star” = Hebrew kōkāb “star” (Arabic al-kawkab بﻛﻮﻜﻟا), Sumerian MÚL, Akkadian kukkabū (plural Hebrew kōkābīm “stars,” Akkadian kukkabū “star, planet, constellation”; in Job 38:7 the “sons of God “ are in synonymous parallel with “morning stars,” kokebe boqer = bene ̕Elohim; the kokaubeam  of BofA 3:13,16, “stars; great lights,” greatest of which is Kolob).  For it is there that the Morning Stars sang together in joy over the decision of that Divine Council (Job 38:7). Polaris is none other than the “north nail” or “World Nail,” the central peg of the turning mill of time and destiny (the mill of the gods), and the way into and out of the watery abyss of death and hell.

The heavenly court motif, which is recognized by modern scholarship as being the Assembly of the Gods (Isa 40:25-26, Ps 82), is interchangeable with the "banquet of salvation on the World Mountain."  In Hebrew it is termed ‘Adat ’El (Ps 82:1), or Sod, "Heavenly Council; Decision of Council; counsel, secret, mystery" (= Essene/Qumran raz = Iranian/Persian raza = Pauline mysterion), and is the direct corollary of Ugaritic ‘dt.ilm, Phr.ilm, Phr.m‘d, "The Divine Parliament; The Group of the Assembly (of Gods)" (= Sumerian UKKIN = Akkadian Puhrum).   What takes place in the North is of primary interest to everyone, but especially to Israelites.
 

 

Strange that you mention Egypt in your attempts to show the direction of south as to mean "southward, downward". The Nile flows north. Upper Egypt is south to Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt, as the Nile nears the Mediterranean, is relatively lower than elsewhere in Egypt but most definitely not south of the rest of Egypt. 

Edited June 19, 2016 by bcuzbcuz

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Strange that you mention Egypt in your attempts to show the direction of south as to mean "southward, downward". The Nile flows north. Upper Egypt is south to Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt, as the Nile nears the Mediterranean, is relatively lower than elsewhere in Egypt but most definitely not south of the rest of Egypt. 

You miissed the point, for whatever reason.  Directional associations are often local and relative.  Just because "south" is "lower" in Latin and Zapotec, doesn't mean that the same is true in ancient Egypt or of Chiapas.  Try reading what I actually said.  Try applying some rigor to directionality.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 6/17/2016 at 1:34 AM, James Tunney said:

Bias. There's so much riding on the historicity debate that mormon archeologists might have a blind spot to evidence or the lack thereof. The historicity conclusion mist be reached for them.

How nice of you to be so considerate.  Fact is, however, that you have no idea what real archeology entails, and I suggest that you spend a few seasons on real digs somewhere to see what actually goes on.  Meantime, here is a new find in Korea which has everyone doing a double-take because it wasn't supposed to be possible or likely, https://www.yahoo.com/news/bizarre-long-headed-woman-ancient-kingdom-revealed-125757440.html ,

Quote

" . . .  skeletons are not preserved well in the soil of Korea," Shin told Live Science in an email.

However, in 2013, researchers had a lucky break while excavating a grave near Gyeongju, the historic capital of the Silla Kingdom. Inside a traditional burial coffin, called a "mokgwakmyo," lay the nearly perfectly intact bones of a woman who died in her late 30s.

The team managed to extract the woman's mitochondrial DNA, or DNA that is passed from mother to daughter. The analysis revealed that she belonged to a genetic lineage that is present, though not common, in East Asia today. Analysis of the carbon isotopes (versions of carbon with different weights) in the skeleton also revealed that the woman was likely a strict vegetarian, in keeping with the interpretation of Buddhism that was prevalent at the time in the country. She also ate a greater percentage of her calories from foods such as rice and potatoes, versus millet or maize, the researchers reported June 1 in the journal PLOS One.

The team was also able to reconstruct her facial features and head shape based on skull fragments. It turned out that the woman was dolichocephalic, meaning her head width was less than about 75 percent of its length.

That differs somewhat from the trends in the region today, where people are more commonly brachycephalic, meaning their head width is at least 80 percent of the head length.

 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Robert F. Smith