Does anybody else consider the Book of Mormon to be fiction?

[Brant Gardner]

6 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

With that said, I've read statements from both the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society that reinforce the fact that no archaeological evidence to support the BoM has been found.  IMO, if the BoM events actually occurred, wouldn't these institutions (and many others) include them in their displays, graphics, presentations, and museums?  

This is a pretty common statement. I have heard this very argument made several times, always with the assumption that it must mean something important. It really doesn't have the import that you lend it.

 

[Ouagadougou]

47 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

Read Aztec history.

Aztec history?

First of all, the Aztecs spoke Nahuatl (Aztec), which is indigenous to Mesoamerica. There is nothing at all to suggest there was anything Hebrew, Semitic, (Reformed Egyptian) in their language structure.  

Isn't the Hill Cumorah in New York?

Mormon 6: 11

"11 And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me."

"The great and last battle, in which several hundred thousand Nephites perished was on the hill Cumorah, the same hill from which the plates were taken by Joseph Smith, the boy about whom I spoke to you the other evening."

Apostle Orson Prat, Feb. 11, 1872

Journal of Discourses Vol. 14, pg. 331

Ether 15:15

 "15 And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children—both men, women and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war—they did march forth one against another to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not."

Where are all of these thousands of weapons of war, shields, breastplates, head-plates and other artifacts?  

Edited November 16, 2016 by Ouagadougou

[Ouagadougou]

51 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

This is a pretty common statement. I have heard this very argument made several times, always with the assumption that it must mean something important. It really doesn't have the import that you lend it.

 

I think if the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society both comment that there is no evidence to support the BoM narrative, then that is pretty important.  

[James Tunney]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Well, You could always open a new thread on the subject of your choice, since the Hamblin-Jenkins debate settled nothing.  I have repeatedly published on the Book of Mormon over the years and have yet to be refuted.  Debate that.

Smith, Robert F., “’It Came To Pass’ in the Bible and the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Preliminary Report SMI-80b (Provo: FARMS, 1980/updated 1981, 1983);  Online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/39997996/It-Came-to-Pass-in-the-Bible-and-Book-of-Mormon ; and at http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/PreliminaryReports/Smith,%20Robert%20F.,%20%22It%20Came%20to%20Pass%22%20in%20the%20Bible%20and%20the%20Book%20of%20Mormon.pdf ; enhanced version online at http://premormon.com/resources/r003/003Smith.pdf .

Smith, Robert F.  “New Information About Mulek, Son of the King,” FARMS Update, Feb 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 , at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.512692608797549.1073741834.121491024584378&type=3 ,  and at http://www.idumea.org/Etudes/Ecritures/LM/Mulek.htm .

Smith, Robert F.  “’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 .

Smith, Robert F.  “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 , .and at http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1110&index=81

Smith, Robert F.  “Book of Mormon Event Structure: The Ancient Near East,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 5/2 (1996):98-147.  Online at http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1391&index=5 .

Smith, Robert F.  “Assessing the Broad Impact of Jack Welch’s Discovery of Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 16/2 (2007):68-73.  Online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=16&num=2&id=447 ,

Smith, Robert F., “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,  and at  https://www.pdffiller.com/53503659-S00005-5176a09fdc8d04Smithpdf-Epistolary-Form-in-the-Book-of-Mormon-Robert-F-Smith-FARMS--Various-Fillable-Forms .  

Smith, Robert F., “Book of Mormon Theologies: A Thumbnail Sketch,” lecture delivered at the September 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology (SMPT), at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/251781864/BOOK-OF-MORMON-THEOLOGIES-A-THUMBNAIL-SKETCH .

Smith, Robert F., “Evaluating the Sources of 2 Nephi 1:13-15: Shakespeare and the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 21/2 (2013):98-103, online at http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/22/2/8Smith_Evaluating%20Sources%20of%202%20Nephi.pdf .

Smith, Robert F., “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” 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 .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't read your works Robert, except for the last one, but I will. It'll take some time as I am busy with a few other things at the moment but should have time next week and over the holiday. Then, we can discuss your views in a new thread as you suggest and perhaps resolve some of the unresolved issues. I look forward to it.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 minute ago, James Tunney said:

I haven't read your works Robert, except for the last one, but I will. It'll take some time as I am busy with a few other things at the moment but should have time next week and over the holiday. Then, we can discuss your views in a new thread as you suggest and perhaps resolve some of the unresolved issues. I look forward to it.

By all means, and be assured that this listing was merely a sampling.

[James Tunney]

4 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

By all means, and be assured that this listing was merely a sampling.

Is there site where all are listed?

[Robert F. Smith]

7 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Battles with millions of people and still not a trace?  Even if those battles had far less than a million...still nothing has been found.  

Battles in Mesoamerican regularly involved just such numbers.  Indeed, at the time of arrival of the Conquistadores in Mexico, scholars now estimate that around 12 million people inhabited Mesoamerica.  A century later, due to European disease and the Conquista, only one million of them remained -- a major demographic disaster.  You desperately need to read the standard histories of the Americas before commenting.  You are blissfully unaware of nearly everything.

[Robert F. Smith]

9 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Is there site where all are listed?

No, although the Maxwell Institute lists many on its website, and the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU lists those and others.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

I think if the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society both comment that there is no evidence to support the BoM narrative, then that is pretty important.  

CFR.  I want quotes, and dated citations.

ETA:  You are required to provide citations on request, according to board rules.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[James Tunney]

2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

No, although the Maxwell Institute lists many on its website, and the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU lists those and others.

Thanks

[Ouagadougou]

26 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Battles in Mesoamerican regularly involved just such numbers.  Indeed, at the time of arrival of the Conquistadores in Mexico, scholars now estimate that around 12 million people inhabited Mesoamerica.  A century later, due to European disease and the Conquista, only one million of them remained -- a major demographic disaster.  You desperately need to read the standard histories of the Americas before commenting.  You are blissfully unaware of nearly everything.

I was referring to this:

Ether 15 : 2

"2 He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children."

No trace of such BoM battles...

[Robert F. Smith]

51 minutes ago, Ouagadougou said:

I was referring to this:

Ether 15 : 2

"2 He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children."

No trace of such BoM battles...

So you say, not having studied anything at all about Mesoamerican history.  If you knew something about the Jaredites, it might help, at least as a start.  Do you have any idea what time-frame they supposedly existed in?  Just for the sake of discussion, do you have any idea where they might have lived?  What sort of civilization do you suppose they had, just judging from the text itself?  How long did they exist in that area or region?  Do you see them as illiterate and living in wigwams?  Is that what the text says?

These are the sort of elementary facts which you must first understand.  Only then are you prepared to correlate them with any New World culture, if any.  You obviously don't believe that it can be done, and I am not asking you to suspend disbelief.  Just tell me what the text says about the questions I have asked.  Then I will explain to you that there is only one civilization in the New World which could have been Jaredite -- a high, literate culture, which had a large population, which flourished for a long period.  Indeed, scholars term it the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica.  You say "no trace" because you know nothing of New World history and archeology.  Please don't make your ignorance the measure of Mormon Scripture.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Ouagadougou]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

CFR.  I want quotes, and dated citations.

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/smithsonian.shtml

http://mit.irr.org/files/files/Images/smithsonian-p2-web.jpg

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Archaeology/Smithsonian_statement

http://www.bmaf.org/articles/reply_smithsonian_institution__sorensen

Just posting links isn't answering a CFR. ~ mod

[Marmonboy]

Be advised that the Smithsonian and NatGeo have no interest in proving or disproving the veracity of the Book of Mormon. That's not what they do. So it's no great wonder that they haven't got stacks of evidence about Nephites. Not to mention the fact that, in a country covered in wood, most things (tools, houses, weapons, etc,) use a great deal of wood. Any idea of what the amount of preservation of organic cultural remains is in a rain forest? Not high, I'll wager.

[Robert F. Smith]

You said:

4 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

I think if the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society both comment that there is no evidence to support the BoM narrative, then that is pretty important.  

Then you replied with the following:

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/smithsonian.shtml

http://mit.irr.org/files/files/Images/smithsonian-p2-web.jpg

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Archaeology/Smithsonian_statement

http://www.bmaf.org/articles/reply_smithsonian_institution__sorensen .

Unfortunately, that merely verifies my information that the Smithsonian does not comment (present tense) in that manner.  In future, I recommend that you quote their actual current statements, rather than winging it based on misinformation you have read on anti-Mormon websites.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Brant Gardner]

9 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

Aztec history?

First of all, the Aztecs spoke Nahuatl (Aztec), which is indigenous to Mesoamerica. There is nothing at all to suggest there was anything Hebrew, Semitic, (Reformed Egyptian) in their language structure.  

Isn't the Hill Cumorah in New York?

Mormon 6: 11

"11 And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me."

"The great and last battle, in which several hundred thousand Nephites perished was on the hill Cumorah, the same hill from which the plates were taken by Joseph Smith, the boy about whom I spoke to you the other evening."

Apostle Orson Prat, Feb. 11, 1872

Journal of Discourses Vol. 14, pg. 331

Ether 15:15

 "15 And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children—both men, women and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war—they did march forth one against another to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not."

Where are all of these thousands of weapons of war, shields, breastplates, head-plates and other artifacts?  

Wouldn't it have been better to assume that I knew that they were later, and what language they spoke? Wouldn't it have been better to assume that my answer was relevant to the question? Wouldn't you think that if the Aztecs were that much later, and engaged in probably more wars than the Nephites, that we would have found their battlefields and bones? Do you think that they did not exist--because we haven't? And if the Aztecs existed, even though they cannot meet your criteria, what does that suggest for a much earlier people?

[Brant Gardner]

Post deleted. I responded before I realized that I was essentially repeating similar information.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Brant Gardner
because I can't delete

[Gervin]

11 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Battles in Mesoamerican regularly involved just such numbers [millions].

CFR.  I want quotes, and dated citations.

You are required to provide citations on request, according to board rules.

[Atheist Mormon]

17 hours ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

Wow, my wife and I were sealed (along with my two youngest) in the Swiss Temple. Small world! 

Hey PaPa, I have nothing but good memories of that period of my life, I lived in Biel 5 yrs, a beautiful country, then it got even better I moved to Utah, the best place to live on Earth.

[Atheist Mormon]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So you say, not having studied anything at all about Mesoamerican history.  If you knew something about the Jaredites, it might help, at least as a start.  Do you have any idea what time-frame they supposedly existed in?  Just for the sake of discussion, do you have any idea where they might have lived?  What sort of civilization do you suppose they had, just judging from the text itself?  How long did they exist in that area or region?  Do you see them as illiterate and living in wigwams?  Is that what the text says?

These are the sort of elementary facts which you must first understand.  Only then are you prepared to correlate them with any New World culture, if any.  You obviously don't believe that it can be done, and I am not asking you to suspend disbelief.  Just tell me what the text says about the questions I have asked.  Then I will explain to you that there is only one civilization in the New World which could have been Jaredite -- a high, literate culture, which had a large population, which flourished for a long period.  Indeed, scholars term it the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica.  You say "no trace" because you know nothing of New World history and archeology.  Please don't make your ignorance the measure of Mormon Scripture.

I don't know what part of Jeredites mentioned in Mesoamerican history but I never heard of it outside of Mormon circles. Maybe you are thinking of an alternative Universe of ours these events happened but not in this one. We have no evidence of BoM.

Contrary to your plea I must act totally ignorant of BoM Archaeology...If I were taking it seriously then I must also be open all other conjectures of Erich von Daniken, Charles Berlitz', not to mention "Abduction stories".....These speculations are conjectures without a shred of evidence.

[Gray]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You are quite right on both counts, but what you are saying is largely irrelevant given the lack of actual research into the matter.  You are vastly overestimating what has been done.

As Brant has pointed out here (and at great length in his 6-volume commentary), there is plenty of archeological evidence in support of the Book of Mormon.  John Sorenson, another anthropologist, has done the same in two substantial books.  Are you aware of them?  Do you understand the nature of the evidence?

From what I understand of the kinds of evidence that John has presented, mainstream mesoamericanists do not interpret any of this as evidence for the existence of Nephites or any other unknown group of Semitic immigrants. Depending on how you interpret the BOM, of course, you can interpret existing archaeological finds as being consistent with Book of Mormon cultures, but that's not quite the same thing as there being evidence that Nephites existed. One could do the same with any number of other cultures around the world. And indeed many have done just that. 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Gray

[stemelbow]

18 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

What do you mean by "embrace"?

 

Accept, tolerate and love, of course. 

[stemelbow]

21 hours ago, Ouagadougou said:

I do not claim to be any expert in this field.  I am sure there are many here that are much more knowledgable than me. 😀 I'm rather curious to see what this Hamblin / Jenkins debate was all about though.  

With that said, I've read statements from both the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society that reinforce the fact that no archaeological evidence to support the BoM has been found.  IMO, if the BoM events actually occurred, wouldn't these institutions (and many others) include them in their displays, graphics, presentations, and museums?  

I understand that the BoM is a powerful/spiritual book...I agree with that; I think there are some great, inspiring verses within its text; however, I cannot accept that these events actually took place based solely on a warm, spiritual feeling.  People can call me a skeptic, person of little faith and the list goes on, but I see no evidence to support its historicity claims as a non-fiction book.  

Good for me. Nothing to be ashamed of here.

The Jenkins/Hamblin debate did bring up some interesting things to talk about but it really settled nothing in the end.  It had two people talking past each other.  But I will add, it was disappointing that Jenkins repeated simple request for something considered evidence was met with nothing but explanation of either why no evidence is available to, saying he is asking the wrong question.

 

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

From what I understand of the kinds of evidence that John has presented, mainstream mesoamericanists do not interpret any of this as evidence for the existence of Nephites or any other unknown group of Semitic immigrants. Depending on how you interpret the BOM, of course, you can interpret existing archaeological finds as being consistent with Book of Mormon cultures, but that's not quite the same thing as there being evidence that Nephites existed. One could do the same with any number of other cultures around the world.

I really think this is where the problem lies.  It feels like parallels and possibilities are seen as settled strong evidence in favor of the BoM, when this topic is addressed.  But clearly that's not sufficient for many. 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Gervin said:

CFR.  I want quotes, and dated citations.

You are required to provide citations on request, according to board rules.

Welcome back, Gervin.  Haven't heard from you in a while.  Nice to have my own words quoted back to me.  Thanks.  However, you violated board rules in editing my quote:

 

Quote

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Battles in Mesoamerican regularly involved just such numbers [millions].

I always recommend that you actually quote the person to whom I was responding.  You may not care, but it is important for those who take scholarship seriously.

Edited November 16, 2016 by Robert F. Smith