The DNA Issue again.

[clarkgoble]

34 minutes ago, Exiled said:

However, dna and the lack of a good answer to Mr. Jenkins' question to Mr. Hamblin years ago plague faithful adherence to the "folk" tradition of historicity. One needs to simply disregard the glaring lack of evidence one would expect to find in order to still believe in historicity. It's as if one needs to believe the nephite/lamanites were so small so as they left no trace yet still believe in the numbers claimed in the bofm text itself.

Again though that presupposes accepting the folk traditions even when most more scholarly faithful literature abandoned such ideas decades ago. So I think it's a false dichotomy. One made even less supportable when FARMS literature filled most Deseret Books bookstores in the 90's and even made appearances in the Ensign. Now, more than 25 years later it's even harder to justify adherence to such folk traditions. 

So this whole problem hinges upon a way of reading the text that isn't even true to the text itself - let alone approaches of bringing in the obvious things scholars do with the Bible. It's tied to a certain "fundamentalist" like naive reading of the text that avoids obvious questions.

Quote

It's as if one needs to believe the nephite/lamanites were so small so as they left no trace yet still believe in the numbers claimed in the bofm text itself. I guess it's just too hard for me to rationalize. 

But again there are easy obvious answers to that question if one abandons the old folk traditions of how to read the text. A small group of around 30 people entering a population made up of millions wouldn't be expected to have a significant genetic impact. I'm not sure why you'd expect otherwise.

Edited June 15, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Exiled]

4 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Again though that presupposes accepting the folk traditions even when most more scholarly faithful literature abandoned such ideas decades ago. So I think it's a false dichotomy. One made even less supportable when FARMS literature filled most Deseret Books bookstores in the 90's and even made appearances in the Ensign. Now, more than 25 years later it's even harder to justify adherence to such folk traditions. 

So this whole problem hinges upon a way of reading the text that isn't even true to the text itself - let alone approaches of bringing in the obvious things scholars do with the Bible. It's tied to a certain "fundamentalist" like naive reading of the text that avoids obvious questions.

But again there are easy obvious answers to that question if one abandons the old folk traditions of how to read the text. A small group of around 30 people entering a population made up of millions wouldn't be expected to have a significant genetic impact. I'm not sure why you'd expect otherwise.

Didn't the nephite/lamanite populations reach into the millions?  It seems with numbers that big, one would find evidence of this civilization and that their dna wouldn't disappear.  Nevertheless, it is always, forever possible, that populations seemingly disappear.  One wouldn't know if this disappearing act happened with other populations because they disappeared.  So, your reading is always going to be possible, just not that probable.

So, do you think the lamanites died out?  Who are they if they didn't?  The book of mormon was supposedly written to them.  That seems to be a tough thing to justify when we don't even know who they are. 

[Rajah Manchou]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

A small group of around 30 people entering a population made up of millions wouldn't be expected to have a significant genetic impact. 

A small group of around 30 people (Lehites) merging with another small group of people (Mulekites) and spreading out across a land that was once inhabited by millions (Jaredites).

[clarkgoble]

12 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Didn't the nephite/lamanite populations reach into the millions?  It seems with numbers that big, one would find evidence of this civilization and that their dna wouldn't disappear.

But that then, as noted earlier, presupposes no others they merged with. i.e. it requires accepting the naive folk tradition. Reject the naive folk tradition and accept the same sort of reasoning that Biblical scholars use (i.e. the Canaanites weren't completely wiped out by Moses and Joshua) and you get very different conclusions. That is if one looks at the Book of Mormon not as infallible in terms of a naive fundamentalist reading but as an actual ancient book with the typical ways of writing of such books.

Given the Nephites after leaving early from the main body (2 Nephi 6) have no idea what the Lamanites are up to, it's not at all clear to me why people presuppose the Lamanites weren't meeting the others in the land we know were there. Further the Nephite numbers by the time of Jacob 2 make little sense unless Nephites were also meeting others. Indeed the problem of concubines in Jacob 2 can be tied to some Jewish traditions of intermarriage where women who can't be married become concubines. While speculative, that may account for the numbers and the issues Jacob is warning about there.

The argument for no others is at best an argument from silence tied to folk traditions and complicated by the main history being in the lost 116 pages. At worse it neglects passages that are hard to explain if there weren't others. (Again, as I've noted, if someone presupposes it's all fiction from Joseph's imagination then how they read the text will be different from if one at least tries to read as if it were real)

12 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

A small group of around 30 people (Lehites) merging with another small group of people (Mulekites) and spreading out across a land that was once inhabited by millions (Jaredites).

Why do you say the Mulekites were small? Or do you just mean in the original trip? We have no idea how big they were at that time although I'd expect they'd be relatively small. (I'd add that the idea the Mulekites weren't really from Jerusalem can't be neglected either - that's Orson Scott Card's theory) The Nephites meet the Mulekites centuries after they'd arrived in the land and would have no way of knowing what they did in that roughly 400 year period given the lack of Mulekite records. There are pretty solid reasons to think the Mulekites had merged with others given their language was incomprehensible to the Nephites and their religion was completely different. (Omni 1:17) 

Part of the problem is that most of the account of meeting the Mulekites is on the lost 116 pages. Our text pops up when Mosiah 1's reign is already well under way. 

Edited June 15, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Rajah Manchou]

1 minute ago, clarkgoble said:

I'd add that the idea the Mulekites weren't really from Jerusalem can't be neglected either - that's Orson Scott Card's theory

I've always wondered why Card didn't take the next logical step and say that the Lehites weren't really from Jerusalem either. They were rather clever Native Americans who wrote the Book of Mormon and buried it in a hill near Palmyra to win political favor with the New Englanders.

I think we can neglect Card's theory as fan fiction.

[Exiled]

23 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

The problem with the "shrinking hemisphere" model is that what shrunk it in the first place was a close and much expanded view of the text.  The history of historicity makes it clear that the first serious attempt to consider all of the geographic clues within the text did not appear until 1937 (the Washburn's book), which means that the hemispheric model did not have viable textual support.  No one had done the work behind the question.  It was the details of the text, not the arguments of the skeptics that changed the model.

Another problem in challenging the overall historicity model is that the New World portion of the Book of Mormon is only a portion of the Book of Mormon.   The scales of balance that I consider has a lot of significant weight on the Old World side that the "What about DNA!" hysterics don't touch.   Consider, Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, and In the Footsteps of Lehi and such.

And there is the problem that in the first generation in the Book of Mormon narrative, "Lamanite" goes from being a lineage designation to a political one (Jacob 1:14), and for those of use who accept the presence of others in the New World from the beginning (see Roper for the best survey), the whole question has a very different frame. 

 

Wasn't the book of mormon written to the lamanites?  So, you would say that the book was actually written to the lamanite political party?  Who are they today?

23 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

That's John Butler, a believing LDS and DNA scientist. 

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1446&index=6

And there is the issue of knowing what to look for, not only of a tiny group entering a pre-existing population of millions 2600 years ago, but on this side of the genetic bottleneck that killed 90% of the indigenous population by the beginning of the 20th century.

Roper (and Gardner about the same time) noticed the importance of Jacob lecturing his people on this passage:

It's reasonable to assume that the mixing started from the beginning, both based on indications in the text, and the clear evidence of archeology.  There were already millions of people around when Lehi and company arrived.

The book of mormon historicity will always be possible.  This I concede.  It's just a small possibility.  Pretty much anything is possible, just not probable.  Possible as you know does not equate to probable always, although you seem to be trying to equate possible with probable with the above quote from Mr. Butler.  All he is saying is that given the current state of dna science, bofm historicity is still possible.  He doesn't quantify the possibility, however.

23 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

And there is the issue about whether anything some LDS authority or teacher once said, whether that should be binding, whether it sets up stakes and bounds, saying, "hitherto thou shalt come and no further" as Joseph Smith stated was in contrast to his intent to continue to learn all things.  What should be our formal position regarding the authority of LDS authorities?

That is D&C 1.  If you have a more authoritative source, let's see it, and account for how it overrules this.

 

Pretty much anything is equal or greater in authority to the above in my opinion.  Joseph Smith made up the D&C.  It was his speculations and this is why he felt fine in changing what he claimed God supposedly told him. The other leaders over the years were just speculating on the myth Joseph Smith created.

23 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Now if someone wants to approach the Book of Mormon as inspired fiction,. if that is the particle of belief that you choose to plant and nurture, fine.  Go ahead.  I cannot help but notice that Ostler's "Expanded" text approach was published in 1987, the same year that Barker's The Older Testament appeared, and began setting a the foundation of her work.  I know lots of people who were helped by Ostler's work.  I liked it myself, but Barker's work changed everything.  I saw that Ostler's critieria for text being an expansion was if it was too Christian before Christ.  And Barker's work makes that sort of argument obsolete, and indeed, suggests that historicity rather than expansion is the stronger argument.

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1459&index=4

Just trying to point out that perspective makes a difference.  As N.R. Hanson famously observed, "All data is theory laden."  Change the theory, and that also changes the significance and interpretation of the data.  And learning that is part of the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth.  Here, as food for thought, are positions 6 and 7 of 9.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

I don't believe in the inspired part of inspired fiction.  I just think that is where the church is headed.  As for the perspective/ethical growth quotes, this can also describe a transition out of mormonism where one leaves the parent organizational cocoon and strikes out on one's own.

[Exiled]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Further the Nephite numbers by the time of Jacob 2 make little sense unless Nephites were also meeting others. Indeed the problem of concubines in Jacob 2 can be tied to some Jewish traditions of intermarriage where women who can't be married become concubines. While speculative, that may account for the numbers and the issues Jacob is warning about there.

It makes perfect sense as evidence that it was an invented story.

[clarkgoble]

16 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I've always wondered why Card didn't take the next logical step and say that the Lehites weren't really from Jerusalem either. They were rather clever Native Americans who wrote the Book of Mormon and buried it in a hill near Palmyra to win political favor with the New Englanders.

I think we can neglect Card's theory as fan fiction.

I'm not sure it's a likely reading, but I'm also not sure we can dismiss it given that the Mulekites only have oral traditions, have a completely new religion, and a completely new language. 

2 minutes ago, Exiled said:

It makes perfect sense as evidence that it was an invented story.

Thus the way of the hermeneutic circle. The interpretation is formed on the basis of the theory then the interpreted data is used as evidence for the theory that shaped the interpretation. Both sides are doing this of course. But I think it important to make explicit the logic of what is going on. What often happens is people cite an evidence not realizing how the theory for which it is claimed as evidence actually shaped the evidence.

[Rajah Manchou]

37 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Why do you say the Mulekites were small?

Because 43 people in Limhi's Party wandered for many days across the Land of Zarahemla and back, and found nothing but dry bones and the oversized swords and breastplates of the extinct Jaredites. Where were the Mulekites? Where were the Maya?

[cinepro]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

Alma’s wish in Alma 29 (76 BC) to “cry repentance unto every people” upon the face of the earth was answered with, “the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word.” I think Alma’s straightforward understanding of what “all the earth” entailed was fairly limited to the lands he was familiar with, and where he acknowledged nations and tongues that were not his own (and recall that his and the sons of Mosiah’s first wish was to visit only his lost brethren, the Lamanites).

 

Alma (and anyone else who knew the story of Lehi's family or had access to the stories on the Brass Plates) knew about the Old World and the people there.

[Exiled]

40 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Thus the way of the hermeneutic circle. The interpretation is formed on the basis of the theory then the interpreted data is used as evidence for the theory that shaped the interpretation. Both sides are doing this of course. But I think it important to make explicit the logic of what is going on. What often happens is people cite an evidence not realizing how the theory for which it is claimed as evidence actually shaped the evidence.

Do you think it's possible to leave the conclusion based thinking you describe above? I realize this goes on with everyone but isn't the solution to this problem to be willing to admit error? I will gladly change my view if there is actually some good evidence that doesn't need massaging. I once believed but changed my mind after looking at the information available. I wanted it to be true but had to concede that there wasn't much support for belief other than a desire to believe. Are you willing to change your view?

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Thus the way of the hermeneutic circle. The interpretation is formed on the basis of the theory then the interpreted data is used as evidence for the theory that shaped the interpretation. Both sides are doing this of course. But I think it important to make explicit the logic of what is going on. What often happens is people cite an evidence not realizing how the theory for which it is claimed as evidence actually shaped the evidence.

Additionally, how does one know when to take literally what supposed scripture says or what prophets say and when not to?  Does science and logic drive this, eg, when science or logic disprove a literal reading, then in comes the non-literal view and additions outside of the text or supposed prophetic statements?  I think this is an example of your hermeneutical circle in action. 

[CV75]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

Alma (and anyone else who knew the story of Lehi's family or had access to the stories on the Brass Plates) knew about the Old World and the people there.

Perhaps. It depends on how much the other biblical / brass plate concepts of "earth" informed his understanding. Of course I’m putting forth that he held to the preponderance of uses (see the definitions for adamah and eret:

https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/adamah.html

; https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/kjv/erets.html ). Plus, he was speaking some 400 years later, plenty of time for his world view to have been influenced by "others"! :)

It also seems that he did not develop these more expansive feelings until after his mission to the Lamanites, so evidently there were more peoples for him to consider but which the Lord had not called him to visit.

[ksfisher]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Because 43 people in Limhi's Party wandered for many days across the Land of Zarahemla and back, and found nothing but dry bones and the oversized swords and breastplates of the extinct Jaredites. Where were the Mulekites? Where were the Maya?

The routes proposed by Sorensen and Gardner have Limhi's party missing the land of Zarahemla, I believe to the east of it.  This area seems to have never been settled by the Nephites. 

While the text in Mosiah 21 says that the party did not find the land of Zarahemla, it does not state that the land through which the party traveled was devoid of people. 

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

Do you think it's possible to leave the conclusion based thinking you describe above?

I wouldn't characterize the hermeneutic circle as conclusion based thinking. It does entail that evidence only has evidentiary meaning relative to theories. So say in science people interpret things in terms of Newtonian mechanics until a better theory arrives. And what the better theory does (say quantum mechanics) is get people to reinterpret their data which changes in some cases the evidentiary meaning. So I think the hermeneutic circle is unavoidable. That doesn't mean all evidence is the same of course. It does entail that when we don't have overwhelming evidence that things are more open than many people are comfortable with. (Even within science, as we found with the transition to modern physics in the 1920-40s)

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

I realize this goes on with everyone but isn't the solution to this problem to be willing to admit error? I will gladly change my view if there is actually some good evidence that doesn't need massaging. I once believed but changed my mind after looking at the information available. I wanted it to be true but had to concede that there wasn't much support for belief other than a desire to believe. Are you willing to change your view?

I think we should definitely all be fallibilists and admit error and be willing to change our mind. However what I find often happening is that people reject one theory for its polar opposite but neglect other theories that can explain the data. So someone might because the naive traditional interpretation is falsified move to an "it's all fiction" model. That's just a false dichotomy. As Elder Uchtdorf put it, don't just doubt your beliefs doubt your doubts.

As for me, I'm quite willing to change my views and, as new data became available, I have changed my views. The question then becomes what's the evidences that have to be explained.

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

Additionally, how does one know when to take literally what supposed scripture says or what prophets say and when not to? 

I usually put "literal" in quotes as I think it's a horrible description of what's going on. Very rarely is it a choice between literal and figurative. Rather typically what's going on is a question of through what context we should interpret texts or evidences. What I call the naive fundamentalist approach tends to adopt several interpretive strategies I think are incorrect and damaging. 

1. tradition is given an overwhelming burden of proof
2. texts should be read as if a regular lay member of the community had written them
3. one shouldn't look for difficulties in the text but just do a superficial reading and go with ones gut interpretation
4. one should pick a single interpretation rather than acknowledging the text is undetermined and supports multiple justified readings

Now of course how those manifest might be more subtle but typically the problem with so called "literalism" is that someone is reading the Bible (or Book of Mormon) as if the author was living in 2018 Houston Texas or the like rather than looking at the purported context based upon archaeology and other texts. You get very, very different readings by shifting the context.

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

Does science and logic drive this, eg, when science or logic disprove a literal reading, then in comes the non-literal view and additions outside of the text or supposed prophetic statements?  I think this is an example of your hermeneutical circle in action. 

I'd say science rarely disproves or proves something. It may make one interpretation vastly more defensible. But usually alternative interpretations are still possible. You see this with even strong theories like quantum mechanics or general relativity. 

That said though, I definitely think one has to pay very close attention to science if a text is making historical claims because the evidence for established strong scientific theories are extremely strong. However not everything in science is that strong and many people assume that just because it's called science that it's all of equal strength. Whereas those in science usually get pretty good at discerning what papers are weakly supported by evidence and which are strongly supported. A single mouse study is a pretty weak claim for an effect in humans for instance.

My experience again is that people tend to neglect how weak evidence really is - particularly in ancient history. It's just orders of magnitude different from the well known physics experiments. Often there's an express argument from silence. 

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

Alma (and anyone else who knew the story of Lehi's family or had access to the stories on the Brass Plates) knew about the Old World and the people there.

What did they know? Let's for the sake of argument assume their plates of brass were similar to our Old Testament up to the exile. Doesn't the very nature of naive fundamentalist readings show just how radically wrong one can be about the old world just using such texts? Why do you think relatively ignorant ancient people would read them so much more accurately than a typical Texan Evangelical? 

My guess is that fairly quickly misreadings of scripture based on assumptions from new world culture started up. If only because that's what humans do.

Further if scriptures were limited, how many people even read scripture. I suspect oral tradition dominated particularly in the beliefs of the laity in the Nephite communities.

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Because 43 people in Limhi's Party wandered for many days across the Land of Zarahemla and back, and found nothing but dry bones and the oversized swords and breastplates of the extinct Jaredites. Where were the Mulekites? Where were the Maya?

The evidence appears to be that the Muelikites outnumbered the Nephites. (Mosiah 25:2) That verse is also somewhat ambiguous in an interesting way. It reads, "the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness." However my understanding is that the punctuation to the Book of Mormon was added later. So this can be read as referring to Mulek and those who came with him from Jerusalem or to the direct descendants of Mulek and those who followed them at a later time into the wilderness where the Nephites found them. i.e. it could easily be read to refer to "others."

As for why Limhi didn't mention others, it might be because it wasn't what they were looking for or because they literally didn't find people until they hit the Zarahemla region. But missing people in the jungle isn't that surprising depending upon the route taken. Further if they did find others, it may well be that they considered them allied to the Lamanites. 

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The evidence appears to be that the Muelikites outnumbered the Nephites. (Mosiah 25:2) That verse is also somewhat ambiguous in an interesting way. It reads, "the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness." However my understanding is that the punctuation to the Book of Mormon was added later. So this can be read as referring to Mulek and those who came with him from Jerusalem or to the direct descendants of Mulek and those who followed them at a later time into the wilderness where the Nephites found them. i.e. it could easily be read to refer to "others."

Another challenge is that the first edition says that Zarahemla was a descendent of Muloch, and the Land of Mulek was first spelled Muleh. Without the 116 pages we can't even be certain if these are references to Mulek. 

But reading the account of Limhi's party, it seems unlikely that they encountered others in their travels between the Land of Nephi and Desolation. The text even says that after finding all the dry bones and rusted swords they feared that Zarahemla had been destroyed. Had they been following the Grijalva and Usamacinta Rivers through the heart of Mayan country during the Middle/Late Presclassic period, surely they would have run into the Maya and mistaken them for the People of Zarahemla. 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, ksfisher said:

The routes proposed by Sorensen and Gardner have Limhi's party missing the land of Zarahemla, I believe to the east of it.  This area seems to have never been settled by the Nephites. 

While the text in Mosiah 21 says that the party did not find the land of Zarahemla, it does not state that the land through which the party traveled was devoid of people. 

"Nevertheless, they did find a land which had been peopled; yea, a land which was covered with dry bones; yea, a land which had been peopled and which had been destroyed; and they, having supposed it to be the land of Zarahemla, returned to the land of Nephi, having arrived in the borders of the land not many days before the coming of Ammon."

The land had been peopled before, but had been destroyed. This sounds like a land devoid of people.

 

[sunstoned]

13 hours ago, CV75 said:

But a straightforward reading (granted, depending on one’s perspective) of the text has been shared for you Posted 22 hours ago (edited)  . Another couple of examples:

 

Alma’s wish in Alma 29 (76 BC) to “cry repentance unto every people” upon the face of the earth was answered with, “the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word.” I think Alma’s straightforward understanding of what “all the earth” entailed was fairly limited to the lands he was familiar with, and where he acknowledged nations and tongues that were not his own (and recall that his and the sons of Mosiah’s first wish was to visit only his lost brethren, the Lamanites).

 

Nephi mentions the heathen a few times, and these are upon the isles of the sea as are his people (see 2 Nephi 10:20; 26:33; Zephania 2:11, who was living in the Old World at the same time). Who were they, if not the Jews and Gentiles who are listed separately? Could they have also been black and white, bond and free?

 

Mormon was abridging the record of his people hundreds of years later, and from his perspective his world was only comprised of warring Lamanites (from whomever they were comprised) and Nephites (from whomever they were comprised), yet he took the time to remind us of the exceptions in several places: that he was a pure descendant of Lehi (3 Nephi 5:20; Mormon 1:5 and 8:13); and that Alma the elder was a descendant of Nephi (Mosiah 17:2); and identified actual descendants of Laman and Lemuel (Alma 24:29; Alma 56:3; Helaman 11:24).

 

I think it great that people can advance their appreciation of the text when valid questions arise.

 

Don't shoot me.  I'm just the messenger.  All I am just saying that a one thousand year history and there is no reference to anyone else living there. Just nephites and laminates. No one else. No other tribes, no neighbors, no trading, no communication, no alliances, no treaties,  no wars, and no first contact accounts. Nada.  Empty land.  Only populated by the descendants of Lehi.  The title page of the BoM use to call this out.  That is until DNA came along. 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Don't shoot me.  I'm just the messenger.  All I am just saying that a one thousand year history and there is no reference to anyone else living there. Just nephites and laminates. No one else. No other tribes, no neighbors, no trading, no communication, no alliances, no treaties,  no wars, and no first contact accounts. Nada.  Empty land.  Only populated by the descendants of Lehi.  The title page of the BoM use to call this out.  That is until DNA came along. 

No credibility

You are not arguing against current paradigms.  Arguing against Ptolemy is passe.

Yes ideas evolve

Get over it

[Atheist Mormon]

On 6/11/2018 at 2:02 PM, aussieguy55 said:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000040

 

The conclusion-

"It is of course possible that genetic evidence of an
ancient trans-Atlantic migration event simply has not
been found yet. Should credible evidence of direct
gene flow from an ancient Solutrean (or Middle
Eastern) population be found within ancient Native
American genomes, it would require the field to reassess
the “Beringian only” model of prehistoric
Native American migration. However, no such evidence
has been found, and the Beringian migration
model remains the best interpretation of the genetic,
archaeological, and paleoclimate data to date."

Can you call any part of this conclusion result of scientific (observation)?

 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Atheist Mormon

[ksfisher]

11 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

"Nevertheless, they did find a land which had been peopled; yea, a land which was covered with dry bones; yea, a land which had been peopled and which had been destroyed; and they, having supposed it to be the land of Zarahemla, returned to the land of Nephi, having arrived in the borders of the land not many days before the coming of Ammon."

The land had been peopled before, but had been destroyed. This sounds like a land devoid of people.

 

You’re making the assumption that they did not have to travel through other lands to get to the land they found.  

[Rajah Manchou]

22 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

You’re making the assumption that they did not have to travel through other lands to get to the land they found.  

They had to travel through the Land of Zarahemla. I'm assuming they believed the people of Zarahemla had been destroyed because they found no people in the Land of Zarahemla.

[ksfisher]

15 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

They had to travel through the Land of Zarahemla. I'm assuming they believed the people of Zarahemla had been destroyed because they found no people in the Land of Zarahemla.

Where in the text does it day they traveled through the land of Zarahemla?  It says they found a land and “supposed it to be the land of Zarahemla,” which seems to be saying that they were mistaken in that supposition.

I don’t see anything in the text to indicate that they “had to travel through the land of Zarahemla.”  

[CV75]

10 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Don't shoot me.  I'm just the messenger.  All I am just saying that a one thousand year history and there is no reference to anyone else living there. Just nephites and laminates. No one else. No other tribes, no neighbors, no trading, no communication, no alliances, no treaties,  no wars, and no first contact accounts. Nada.  Empty land.  Only populated by the descendants of Lehi.  The title page of the BoM use to call this out.  That is until DNA came along. 

No shooting, that’s why I said “But…” in a meek and lowly manner...

Yes, I appreciate that some believe that in a one thousand year history there is no reference to anyone else living there (and I’m sure you also mean Mulekites and Jaredites). I also appreciate that genetic science* has given others reason to ask good (and bad) questions and reconsider what the text means and says. And I also appreciate that yet others thought otherwise long before the DNA thing came along. And yes, I appreciate messengers.

* Drawing conclusions from only one area of science creates terrible misunderstandings; a free exchange of interdisciplinary approaches often facilitates much better understanding and questions.

Edited June 16, 2018 by CV75