'Unprecedented' Native American burial site discovered

[Jeanne]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

The church doesn't allow? What happens if a member of the church disagrees with Donald W. Parry or Elder Holland on that issue? Are they going to be kicked out of the church?

If disagreeing with a general authority isn't "allowed" we might as well shut the whole thing down. There is not a single member of the church (leaders included) that agrees with everything ever put out by an apostle, prophet, or church publication.

This may be true...but first that would have to admit it...and that is never going to happen.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

18 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 

I said that "LDS members who go to the temple will recognize Gen 1 - 4 as liturgy, not history."  The reason this is true is because the LDS endowment ceremony is liturgy.  Since you don't have any idea what "liturgy" is, Sam, naturally that doesn't make any sense to you -- leading you to rephrase it in an invidious way (something Satan loves to do). 

 

President Nelson said the Book of Mormon "is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages". Same for the Temple ceremony Robert.

18 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

  You likely also do not understand that the LDS Prayers over the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper are liturgy, not history.

Robert, the word history can mean 1. a chronological record of significant events 2. events of the past. Why is the Lord's Supper not history?

18 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Currid is especially helpful in eliciting meaning in the Hebrew text from ancient Egyptian culture.  Since Israel came out of Egypt after spending centuries there, many of their words, technical and religious terms, and motifs are taken from ancient Egypt.  The design of the Tabernacle in the desert, for example, is an Egyptian design, with Egyptian art and symbolism, although the later Temple of Solomon is a Phoenician design.

Robert, I think we should get back to Noah's Flood. You said the story of Noah's flood comes from oral traditions dating back to thousands of years. What evidence do you have that ancient oral traditions for thousands of years are accurate?

23 hours ago, Calm said:

Sleep on it.

Maybe this can help:

For me a story is history, fiction, or both as Marginal said, " A whole story can have bits of non-fiction and bits of fiction within it," So perhaps you mean both?

Edited March 9, 2018 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

President Nelson said the Book of Mormon "is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages". Same for the Temple ceremony Robert.

Pres Nelson is correct, but that is very different from what you have been saying -- being unable to distinguish liturgy from history.  I have yet to find you owning up to the differences.  You desperately need to take a couple of semesters of college English literature (something you clearly failed to understand in high school).

5 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, the word history can mean 1. a chronological record of significant events 2. events of the past. Why is the Lord's Supper not history?

So you are now asserting that the formal prayers of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (which is passed each Sabbath in LDS churches) are historical narrative?  And not liturgy? You might try looking up the words in a dictionary.

5 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, I think we should get back to Noah's Flood. You said the story of Noah's flood comes from oral traditions dating back to thousands of years. What evidence do you have that ancient oral traditions for thousands of years are accurate?

Yes, many scholars assert that the Great Deluge accounts (there are many of them) come from oral traditions passed down over long periods of time.  You automatically doubt that that is possible.  I did not say what the source of those accounts was, but merely explained that scholars have some different ideas of what caused people to pass on such accounts.  In the past, I have cited sources which deal with the accuracy of oral traditions.  You ignored those sources because you base all your judgments on whatever level of ignorance you possess at the moment.  I keep hoping that you will drop the game-playing and become sincere.

5 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

For me a story is history, fiction, or both as Marginal said, " A whole story can have bits of non-fiction and bits of fiction within it," So perhaps you mean both?

Would you like to give some examples of such stories?  It is not at all clear that you understand anything about stories of any kind.

[Marginal Gains]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Pres Nelson is correct, but that is very different from what you have been saying -- being unable to distinguish liturgy from history.  I have yet to find you owning up to the differences.  You desperately need to take a couple of semesters of college English literature (something you clearly failed to understand in high school).

So you are now asserting that the formal prayers of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (which is passed each Sabbath in LDS churches) are historical narrative?  And not liturgy? You might try looking up the words in a dictionary.

Yes, many scholars assert that the Great Deluge accounts (there are many of them) come from oral traditions passed down over long periods of time.  You automatically doubt that that is possible.  I did not say what the source of those accounts was, but merely explained that scholars have some different ideas of what caused people to pass on such accounts.  In the past, I have cited sources which deal with the accuracy of oral traditions.  You ignored those sources because you base all your judgments on whatever level of ignorance you possess at the moment.  I keep hoping that you will drop the game-playing and become sincere.

Would you like to give some examples of such stories?  It is not at all clear that you understand anything about stories of any kind.

What’s your basis for asserting that President Nelson is correct in saying that the Book of Mormon contains actual, factual, history?

[SamuelTheLamanite]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So you are now asserting that the formal prayers of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper (which is passed each Sabbath in LDS churches) are historical narrative?  And not liturgy? You might try looking up the words in a dictionary.

Robert, you are creating a straw-man here. The last supper did happen, so it is history. 

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Pres Nelson is correct, but that is very different from what you have been saying -- being unable to distinguish liturgy from history.  I have yet to find you owning up to the differences. 

In the last page I asked you "Are temple stories history or fiction Robert?". I wasn't asking you about the rites or doctrines, I was asking you about the stories Robert. The temple stories are history.

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, many scholars assert that the Great Deluge accounts (there are many of them) come from oral traditions passed down over long periods of time.  You automatically doubt that that is possible.  I did not say what the source of those accounts was, but merely explained that scholars have some different ideas of what caused people to pass on such accounts.  In the past, I have cited sources which deal with the accuracy of oral traditions.  You ignored those sources because you base all your judgments on whatever level of ignorance you possess at the moment.  I keep hoping that you will drop the game-playing and become sincere.

You did in this thread http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/70013-john-the-apostle-had-to-be-about-8-years-old-during-jesus-ministry-on-earth/?page=6

We didn't come to an agreement about first century traditions. Now you are saying oral traditions for thousands of years can be accurate. It is completely different because you are now talking about thousands of years, not decades.

Edited March 9, 2018 by SamuelTheLamanite

[SamuelTheLamanite]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, many scholars assert that the Great Deluge accounts (there are many of them) come from oral traditions passed down over long periods of time. 

Robert, Adam was the first prophet on Earth and D&C 77 teaches "What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence".  If God has been revealing his will for six thousand years it means the Fall happened six thousand years ago. Remember the last  one thousand years are the millennium.

The great deluge in Genesis can't possibly pre-date Adam. Noah's Flood has to date between 3000BC to 2500BC. There are many other reasons why the great Flood in Genesis can't possibly go back to the end of the last ice age.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, Adam was the first prophet on Earth and D&C 77 teaches "What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence".  If God has been revealing his will for six thousand years it means the Fall happened six thousand years ago. Remember the last  one thousand years are the millennium.

The great deluge in Genesis can't possibly pre-date Adam. Noah's Flood has to date between 3000BC to 2500BC. There are many other reasons why the great Flood in Genesis can't possibly go back to the end of the last ice age.

Not everyone on planet Earth is a Mormon or a young-earth evangelical, Sam.  There are many different opinions about geology, the source of flood stories, and the extent of them.  You should not panic simply because not everyone shares every view that you have heard.  Your personal beliefs might be in a minority.  So it helps if you at least understand how those various views differ from one another, as well as how various types of literature differ from one another.  Thus far, you seem to have missed the complexities, leaving you crippled when it comes to having a real discussion.

The LDS Church does not state that "Noah's Flood has to date between 3000BC to 2500BC."   Instead, the 1979 LDS Bible Dictionary says (at "Chronology"), "For the earliest parts of O.T. history we rely entirely on the scripture itself; but the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint or Greek translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty."  You make a habit of conveniently forgetting whatever doesn't fit into your narrow purview, Sam.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

1 minute ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Not everyone on planet Earth is a Mormon or a young-earth evangelical, Sam

Just because the Fall of Adam happened six thousand years ago doesn't mean the Earth is Young. Nobody knows how old the Earth is. You haven't offered another interpretation for D&C 77.

3 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The LDS Church does not state that "Noah's Flood has to date between 3000BC to 2500BC."   Instead, the 1979 LDS Bible Dictionary says (at "Chronology"), "For the earliest parts of O.T. history we rely entirely on the scripture itself; but the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint or Greek translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty."  You make a habit of conveniently forgetting whatever doesn't fit into your narrow purview, Sam.

Robert, no one knows the exact date of the Genesis Flood. However, it doesn't mean the Flood happened more than 6,000 years ago. Elder Sterling W. Sill taught ""The first 4,000 years began at the fall of Adam and ended at the birth of Christ."

[Robert F. Smith]

38 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Just because the Fall of Adam happened six thousand years ago doesn't mean the Earth is Young. Nobody knows how old the Earth is. You haven't offered another interpretation for D&C 77.

Actually geologists do know how old the Earth is, Sam.  However, you are correct:  the claim that the Fall occurred only 6000 years ago can accommodate a very old Earth.  My question to you would be, Do you know why?

38 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, no one knows the exact date of the Genesis Flood. However, it doesn't mean the Flood happened more than 6,000 years ago. Elder Sterling W. Sill taught ""The first 4,000 years began at the fall of Adam and ended at the birth of Christ."

As long as you understand that precise chronology is not the basis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as long as you fully accept the importance of sincerity, these other issues will not make much difference.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As long as you understand that precise chronology is not the basis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and as long as you fully accept the importance of sincerity, these other issues will not make much difference.

Yes, but God revealed D&C 77 for a reason.

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually geologists do know how old the Earth is, Sam.  However, you are correct:  the claim that the Fall occurred only 6000 years ago can accommodate a very old Earth.  My question to you would be, Do you know why?

Sure, so do anthropologists. Do anthropologists believe oral traditions for thousands of years are accurate? The story of the Biblical Flood has a lot of details, so I doubt it comes from ancient oral traditions dating back to the end of the last ice age. Unless you believe the Genesis flood story is mostly inaccurate

Edited March 9, 2018 by SamuelTheLamanite

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, you are creating a straw-man here. The last supper did happen, so it is history. 

The subject is not the Last Supper, but the formal prayer regularly given to celebrate that Last Supper.  Only someone insincere would repeatedly and deliberately miss that point.  The Prayer is not history, but is a prayer.  What type of prayer?  A sacramental prayer.  There are lots of sacraments.  In this case the prayer is celebrating the Last Supper.  Do you understand why?

4 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

In the last page I asked you "Are temple stories history or fiction Robert?". I wasn't asking you about the rites or doctrines, I was asking you about the stories Robert. The temple stories are history.

You did in this thread http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/70013-john-the-apostle-had-to-be-about-8-years-old-during-jesus-ministry-on-earth/?page=6

We didn't come to an agreement about first century traditions. Now you are saying oral traditions for thousands of years can be accurate. It is completely different because you are now talking about thousands of years, not decades.

So you are still unable to distinguish liturgy from history?  Really?

[Robert F. Smith]

7 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Yes, but God revealed D&C 77 for a reason.

God demands sincerity from you for a reason.  Why do you reject his Gospel?

7 minutes ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Sure, so do anthropologists. Do anthropologists believe oral traditions for thousands of years are accurate? The story of the Biblical Flood has a lot of details, so I doubt it comes from ancient oral traditions dating back to the end of the last ice age. Unless you believe the Genesis flood story is mostly inaccurate

So you are afraid to tell us how that 6000 years can accommodate a very old Earth, and you still insist on making your ignorance the measure of all things.  Those who lack sincerity reject God, Sam.  Why do you reject God?

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

What’s your basis for asserting that President Nelson is correct in saying that the Book of Mormon contains actual, factual, history?

Sam quoted Pres Nelson as saying that the BoM ""is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages".   He didn't provide a source.  Your version of what Pres Nelson said is a little stronger, but let us for the moment accept your version.  I have commented in detail on various aspects of the BofM as real history in a wide array of sources, but for the moment see my “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 have additional materials available, if you need them.

[Okrahomer]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Sam quoted Pres Nelson as saying that the BoM ""is not a textbook of history, although some history is found within its pages".   He didn't provide a source.  Your version of what Pres Nelson said is a little stronger, but let us for the moment accept your version.  I have commented in detail on various aspects of the BofM as real history in a wide array of sources, but for the moment see my “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 have additional materials available, if you need them.

One of the “extraordinary” evidences you outline in your linked presentation has to do with the Nephite system of weights and measures, and how similar it is to the Egypto-Israelite system.  To my non-scholar’s mind, it seems quite compelling.  How likely is it that Joseph Smith was aware of the Egypto-Israelite system of weights and measures?

[Robert F. Smith]

8 minutes ago, Okrahomer said:

One of the “extraordinary” evidences you outline in your linked presentation has to do with the Nephite system of weights and measures, and how similar it is to the Egypto-Israelite system.  To my non-scholar’s mind, it seems quite compelling.  How likely is it that Joseph Smith was aware of the Egypto-Israelite system of weights and measures?

That system (marked with hieratic Egyptian) is not in the Bible, and has only been known archeologically for the last 50 years of so.  I was very surprised by it.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

On 3/9/2018 at 10:46 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

God demands sincerity from you for a reason.  Why do you reject his Gospel?

Robert, I feel you are avoiding my questions and points. It's okay not to have an answer, just say it. No one is judging you.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Robert, I feel you are avoiding my questions and points. It's okay not to have an answer, just say it. No one is judging you.

If you were sincere, Sam, no discussion would be difficult for us.  Your unwillingness to engage in honest give and take is he best indicator of your lack of sincerity, which likewise indicates your rejection of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You have instead adopted the craven Satanic approach.  This further tells us why you use a pseudonym.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/9/2018 at 2:41 PM, SamuelTheLamanite said:

Just because the Fall of Adam happened six thousand years ago doesn't mean the Earth is Young. Nobody knows how old the Earth is. You haven't offered another interpretation for D&C 77.......................................................

I just noticed  a very clever observation from John Gee's latest book, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 130-131, on the age of this system:

Taking the well-known comment by Wild Bill Phelps in the Dec 1844 Times & Seasons that  our system has been going on for 2,555 millions of years, Gee does the math:  Taking 7,000 years at 1,000 years to 1 day on Earth (Abraham 3:4, and facs 2:1) actually does give us 2 1/5 billion years (7,000 x 365 x 1,000 = 2,555,000,000 years).  "For as yet, the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning" (Abr 5:13).

[Gray]

On 3/8/2018 at 10:18 AM, Marginal Gains said:

Can you point me in the direction of an Apostle disagreeing with the published Church position that the flood was literal, global, and wiped out the entirety of humanity except for 8 people on the ark? 

No. But I can point you to church leaders publicly disagreeing with Adam God, or publicly disagreeing on the nature of doctrine.

 

On 3/8/2018 at 10:18 AM, Marginal Gains said:

Publicly disagreeing with a general authority on a matter of doctrine is certainly not “allowed”. Just ask Jeremy Runnells.

I think you'll find Jeremy got into trouble for publicly opposing the church, not just disagreeing with a few points here or there.

[Robert F. Smith]

Megafloods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWQPgIlXHlk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqbpf5ULXwU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_LRo3wIT34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1BFb_uYlFQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5HJWSpLWE   

[MormonMason]

On ‎03‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 11:54 PM, Josh Khinder said:

The article tells us they have found the signature of the Prophet Isaiah yet haven't found one sign of the Book of Mormon civilization 

I've seen that information.  Problem is, Isaiah the prophet isn't the only person with the name Isaiah.  Not even in the Bible.  No way to tie that seal definitively with the prophet of the Bible.  It could have been anyone named Isaiah.  The only way to know for sure is if it actually says something like "Isaiah the prophet."  And then the question of forgery might then come up in discussions of the artifact.  But the text isn't clear enough from the photos I've seen to be sure.  OK.  I found something with a little better resolution.  There is part of the text that may say NBY but "prophet" is NBY'.  That might be "prophet" or it might be something else.  It is broken at the end, so no way to know for sure.  The name Isaiah, as in "belonging to Isaiah" may be spelled YŠꜤYH in the seal.  The line is broken at the end, so no way to know for sure.  But Isaiah the prophet's name as spelled throughout the text of the Book of Isaiah is YŠꜤYHW.  We also would expect to see the name written in a seal belonging to him as "Isaiah son of Amoz."  But that isn't what is seen in the seal.

As to Book of Mormon civilizations (there were more than one) not having one sign found, it is possible that many signs have been found.  We just don't know what they look like yet.  You may object to that but that actually is how it sometimes works in the archaeological field.  Why do you think that there are arguments against the Bible still being made by some archaeologists? In some circumstances, it has been very difficult to tell the difference between Canaanite artifacts and Israelite artifacts, which is in part why it is that there are archaeologists in the "there was no Exodus" crowd who state that the Israelites are no more than people from the Canaanite lower classes who had an uprising and overthrew their fellow Canaanites.  Funny thing about that is that Hebrew itself is a Canaanite dialect, too.  They adopted a dialect of the language of the Canaanites as their own language!  Israelites originally spoke Aramaic and Egyptian before adopting the language of the people they conquered.

Now, apply that to the Book of Mormon.  If the Israelites did that before, I see no reason why they might not do the same in the Americas, and adopt the techniques, weaponry, clothing, and other wares of the native peoples over time.  They did it in Europe, too, adopting pottery and various ways of doing things that Europeans did.  If they did that (there is no good reason to deny they did) then how do we tell Book of Mormon Israelites from the native peoples who were there when they arrived? Answer is that you cannot.  Something distinctive has to be found in order to begin to distinguish between them among the artifacts.  Unless that something is found, you cannot tell the two groups of people apart from the standpoints of what's in the ground or from the artifacts.

Edited March 30, 2018 by MormonMason
Updated