Simon Southerton

[Teancum]

3 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Seems pretty self-evident.  Surely you are familiar with what happened to the Americas after they came to "the knowledge of other nations."  Columbus was not the first to discovery the Americas, but he was the genesis of the Americas coming to "the knowledge of other nations."  Is this even a point in dispute?

Thanks,

-Smac

Do you disagree that historically the LDS Church has interpreted this passage to mean that there were not other people where the alleged BoM settled?

[Teancum]

4 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Irrelevant. What is "The land", a 300-mile plot? Even if "the land" is both Contenants, how does keeping the entire New World secret from Old World nations, which is true, mean "the land" is empty of people that never told whatever former nation they might have come from. If a foreigner discovers your secret land but never returned home, your land is still secret, and there are other people there. So, what on earth do you think you proved? Nothing. 

Take it up with President Clark, and other LDS leaders.

[JustAnAustralian]

 

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

And I wonder if modern interpretations are driven more by a close reading of the text

The BoM text literally talks about the Jaredite nation who was there previously. No modern interpretation is needed.

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations ; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

The BoM text literally talks about the Jaredite nation who was there previously. No modern interpretation is needed.

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

The Lord so kept the land for a thousand years after Lehi landed.

That's after, not before, so is irrelevant. It also ignores the Mulekites.

[smac97]

48 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Quote

Seems pretty self-evident.  Surely you are familiar with what happened to the Americas after they came to "the knowledge of other nations."  Columbus was not the first to discovery the Americas, but he was the genesis of the Americas coming to "the knowledge of other nations."  Is this even a point in dispute?

Do you disagree that historically the LDS Church has interpreted this passage to mean that there were not other people where the alleged BoM settled?

Yes.  The historical record is quite mixed on this.  Matt Roper has written quite a bit about it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

12 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Jaredite nation who was there previously. No modern interpretation is needed.

How many Jaredites survived that last epic battle again? Does the text tell us? 

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Take it up with President Clark, and other LDS leaders.

I don't have to, after all, you have no quotes from this decade. Do ya?

[JustAnAustralian]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

How many Jaredites survived that last epic battle again? Does the text tell us? 

At least 1. The one we know of chilled with the Mulekites for a while, so there was overlap with them being in the land. (omni 1:15-21)

Edited February 23, 2023 by JustAnAustralian

[sunstoned]

11 hours ago, smac97 said:

CFR, please.  Chapter and verse.

2 Nephi 1: 5-11

  Quote

7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.
8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.
 

  Quote

"The Lord took every precaution to see that nothing might interfere with this posterity of Joseph in working out their God-given destiny and the destiny of America. He provided, and so told Lehi at the very beginning of his settlement, that: . . it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations ; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. (2 Nephi 1:8.) The Lord so kept the land for a thousand years after Lehi landed. He so kept it in His wisdom for another thousand years after the Nephites were destroyed, perhaps to give the Lamanitish branch another chance."

Expand  

- Apostle J. Reuben Clark, "Prophecies, Penalties, and Blessings," Improvement Era, 1940, v. xliii., July 1940. no. 7

And with regards to DNA:

"About twenty-five centuries ago, a hardy group left the comforts of a great city, crossed a desert, braved an ocean, and came to the shores of this, their promised land. There were two large families, those of Lehi and Ishmael, who in not many centuries numbered hundreds of millions of people on these two American continents."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 601

Millions of people and no DNA or other evidence.  The church needs to modify what the BoM is.  It cannot be a real history.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

What is your evidence for BoM People?  The burden of proof is on those making the claim. But you know this anyway.

My position is logically justifiable, yours is not. Besides, I am fine with a non historic BOM, with it being a parable, as you should know already.

[webbles]

9 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

Millions of people and no DNA or other evidence.  The church needs to modify what the BoM is.  It cannot be a real history.

 

I find it fascinating that just a few pages later (or a few hundred years later) another nation is discovered. So either Lehi misspoke when he said that it would be kept hidden from other nations or there is more to it.  Same with your quotes from President Clark and Kimball.  Either they never made it past Omni or there is more to it.

I also find it fascinating that if you only read the Small plates (1 Nephi to Omni) you don't really find much indication of other nations until the very end of Omni.  And Omni introduces two nations in just a few verses.  Makes me wonder if there were other nations described in the lost pages.

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

Quote

Quote

Well, according to the BoM the land was empty.  

CFR, please.  Chapter and verse.

2 Nephi 1: 5-11

  Quote

7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.
8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

So for you "this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations" = "according to the BoM the land was empty"?

Is that a fair synopsis?

Have you read Matt Roper's article, "Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations"?  If not, I encourage you to do so.  If you have read it, I am curious as to your response to this portion of his article:

Quote

A recent critic of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has complained that “some LDS scholars, especially those associated with FARMS, . . . reinterpret Lamanite identity in the later part of the twentieth century”² and thereby “implicitly reject long-standing popular Mormon beliefs, including those held by Joseph Smith, about Lamanites being the ancestors of today’s American Indians.”³ Of course, popular beliefs, longstanding or otherwise, are not crucial to the foundations of the faith of Latter-day Saints, which are based on revealed scripture.

What are your thoughts about that?

Quote

In regard to the ancestry of the Amerindians, the central issue for Latter-day Saints is not whether Native Americans are in some measure descendants of Israel but whether their ancestors are exclusively Israelite. Latter-day scriptures speak of a remnant of those people described in the Book of Mormon and of their prophetic destiny, suggesting that this remnant may be found among Native American groups known perhaps to Joseph Smith and others. While these revelations affirm an Israelite component to Native American ancestry, they never claim that all the Native Americans’ ancestors were Israelite, nor do they deny the presence of other peoples in pre-Columbian America.

Do you agree or disagree with Matt's summary here?

And here:

Quote

Elder Oaks’s observations, though made more than a decade ago, underscore a fatal weakness in some recent arguments against the Book of Mormon. Critics assume that genetic evidence—any genetic evidence—taken from any Native American population must be shown to be Israelite, or the Book of Mormon’s claims are false. But there is no good reason to assume that Native American lineages and ancestors must be exclusively Israelite. In regard to the nature and identity of Lehi’s people, Latter-day Saints have held a variety of opinions and expressed several interpretations historically, but whether some Native Americans, or many Native Americans, or even all Native Americans have Lehi as an ancestor, it does not follow that they did not have others.⁶

Well?  Is your personal interpretation of 2 Nephi 1: 5-11 (which, candidly, is quite a stretch) binding on the Latter-day Saints?  Or are they free to hold "a variety of opinions" on this matter?

Roper goes on to cite a variety of historical sources that contravene your notion of what the Book of Mormon says about other populations in the Americas, going all the way back to 1842.

11 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

  Quote

"The Lord took every precaution to see that nothing might interfere with this posterity of Joseph in working out their God-given destiny and the destiny of America. He provided, and so told Lehi at the very beginning of his settlement, that: . . it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations ; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. (2 Nephi 1:8.) The Lord so kept the land for a thousand years after Lehi landed. He so kept it in His wisdom for another thousand years after the Nephites were destroyed, perhaps to give the Lamanitish branch another chance."

I don't understand.  Are you not aware of the history of the Americas generally?  Of why we often speak of "pre-columbian" civilizations?  The reference here is to . . . Christopher Columbus.  His discovery was not the first, but it was the one that brought the Americas to "the knowledge of other nations."

I am really not understanding your point here, as the impact of Columbus has, to me, always been a given.

11 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

And with regards to DNA:

"About twenty-five centuries ago, a hardy group left the comforts of a great city, crossed a desert, braved an ocean, and came to the shores of this, their promised land. There were two large families, those of Lehi and Ishmael, who in not many centuries numbered hundreds of millions of people on these two American continents."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 601

Millions of people and no DNA or other evidence.  The church needs to modify what the BoM is.  It cannot be a real history.

Actually yes, it can.  We just need to pay more attention to what it actually says, and not as much attention to what others have said about it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Pyreaux]

30 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

2 Nephi 1: 5-11

  Quote

7 Wherefore, this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore, they shall never be brought down into captivity; if so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound cursed shall be the land for their sakes, but unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever.
8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.
 

  Quote

"The Lord took every precaution to see that nothing might interfere with this posterity of Joseph in working out their God-given destiny and the destiny of America. He provided, and so told Lehi at the very beginning of his settlement, that: . . it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations ; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. (2 Nephi 1:8.) The Lord so kept the land for a thousand years after Lehi landed. He so kept it in His wisdom for another thousand years after the Nephites were destroyed, perhaps to give the Lamanitish branch another chance."

Expand  

- Apostle J. Reuben Clark, "Prophecies, Penalties, and Blessings," Improvement Era, 1940, v. xliii., July 1940. no. 7

And with regards to DNA:

"About twenty-five centuries ago, a hardy group left the comforts of a great city, crossed a desert, braved an ocean, and came to the shores of this, their promised land. There were two large families, those of Lehi and Ishmael, who in not many centuries numbered hundreds of millions of people on these two American continents."
- Prophet Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 601

Millions of people and no DNA or other evidence.  The church needs to modify what the BoM is.  It cannot be a real history.

Sooo.... No chapter or verse from scriptures themselves saying the entire Contenant was empty? Merely the advice that their land "should" be kept secret from the Nations of the Old World, and absolutely nothing excluding Nationless vagabonds like everyone there?

Repeating it over and over doesn't make it true... Or untrue in this case.

[sunstoned]

1 minute ago, Pyreaux said:

Sooo.... No chapter or verse from scriptures themselves saying the entire Contenant was empty? Merely the advice that their land "should" be kept secret from the Nations of the Old World, and absolutely nothing excluding Nationless vagabonds like everyone there?

Repeating it over and over doesn't make it true... Or untrue in this case.

Strained apologetic thinking aside,  It is quite clear to me and many others such as President Kimball (quoted below) that "it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations " means no other nations.  This was a common teaching in the church for decades.  That is until the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming.  That is one of the reasons the intro to the BoM was changed.

Quote

 

In 1971, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."

("Of Royal Blood," Ensign, July 1971, p. 7).

 

 

[smac97]

1 minute ago, sunstoned said:

Strained apologetic thinking aside,  It is quite clear to me and many others such as President Kimball (quoted below) that "it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations " means no other nations.  This was a common teaching in the church for decades.  That is until the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming.  That is one of the reasons the intro to the BoM was changed.

 

Again, Matt Roper:

Quote

In regard to the ancestry of the Amerindians, the central issue for Latter-day Saints is not whether Native Americans are in some measure descendants of Israel but whether their ancestors are exclusively Israelite.

That rather eviscerates your argument, such as it is.

Thanks,

-Smac

[JustAnAustralian]

12 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

"it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations " means no other nations.

Except for the jaredites (the remnant of which spent time with the mulekites, so likely some overlap).

Except for the mulekites (who directly interacted with them).

Except for the people that must have been "other", as knowing the nephite language was mentioned.

[smac97]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

Take it up with President Clark, and other LDS leaders.

I think we would be better taking it up with the actual text of the Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

Strained apologetic thinking aside,  It is quite clear to me and many others such as President Kimball (quoted below) that "it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations " means no other nations.  This was a common teaching in the church for decades.  That is until the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming.  That is one of the reasons the intro to the BoM was changed.

Strained? Maybe you don't understand. Exactly, what "Nation" did the Clovis represent? With the Clovis there, the land is still undiscovered by any of the "Nations".

The Standard Works are the measuring stick by which we measure every man's doctrine, even President Kimball. President Kimball isn't establishing doctrine; you aren't quoting Kimball from the D&C here and Kimball isn't even quoting your BoM prooftext, therefore not establishing an official interpretation of the BoM verse in question. Just his own thoughts, that for some odd reason, you can't excuse for speaking based on BoM silence and lacking modern information; just because you need that straw to grasp onto. And what? You think I can't say that President Kimball presumed too much where the book is silent about other people? I certainly can, I have the advantage of hindsight, and he is not infallible. You sure exercise great faith in our leaders' whenever you need to use it against them in the court of opinion.

The Introduction to the Book of Mormon was more likely changed because some on your side you saw the word "Principal" which means "the most important" and confused it with "Principle" which would mean single and unique.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Pyreaux

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

 

The BoM text literally talks about the Jaredite nation who was there previously. No modern interpretation is needed.

The BoM text literally talks about the Jaredite nation who was there previously. No modern interpretation is needed.

That's after, not before, so is irrelevant. It also ignores the Mulekites.

Problem is that but for three groups of people the BoM strongly implies, and LDS leaders traditionally interpreted it, to mean there were not large populations of other humans where the Nephites settled. But nobody really knows where that was.  An now that it is clear that the Americas were populated of tens of thousands of years, well the narrative has to be changed.

[Snodgrassian]

Lets try and break this down a bit:

Nephites existed:

1. DNA is present
   • It is part of the DNA make up of the native Americans (not what is assumed it should be)
   • We just haven't successfully ID'd yet
   • Haplogroup X2a
   • Other? 
2. DNA is NOT present
   • Lehi's group was too small and intermixed with local population
   • Population was destroyed, no DNA evidence remains
   • Other?

Nephites NEVER existed:

1. DNA is present (Whatever Nephite DNA is "supposed" to look like)
   • Other means for that DNA to appear in the Americas
2. DNA is not present
   • Expected result

 

Over the last 2,500 years, are there any other examples of a large group of people that:

• populated a land
• kept records
• built cities
• built infrastructure, and

We (the world) know that this group of people existed, yet can not pinpoint any definitive evidence of their society/existence?

[Islander]

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

No. We don't know the markers of Israelites from before the Babylonian exile, particularly lost tribes. It's the exact reason there are Black Jewish movements and those who think Jesus was black, because we don't really know. 

It is not what people say and believe. It is what genetic research shows. Abraham and his descendants share unique genetic markers. Melanin is only 0.5% of the total gene pool. So skin color can change and disappear in 2 generations. Not so the rest of the genetic markers. Like I mentioned before, this theme has been argued ad nauseum here in the forum. I am sure you can find the threads. But here is something: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19669163/

[Teancum]

14 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

I don't have to, after all, you have no quotes from this decade. Do ya?

Thanks for proving that the church's narrative is constantly a moving target.

[Teancum]

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

My position is logically justifiable,

How so?  The BoM makes verifiable claims.  So if you believe them you have the burden of proof.

11 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

 

yours is not. Besides, I am fine with a non historic BOM, with it being a parable, as you should know already.

You may be and that is fine. But other on this thread and the Church does not view it this way.

[Teancum]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

I think we would be better taking it up with the actual text of the Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

So the explanations and interpretations of apostles and prophets are meaningless.  Wow we actually agree on something. 😁

[Benjamin McGuire]

16 hours ago, Teancum said:

Do you disagree that historically the LDS Church has interpreted this passage to mean that there were not other people where the alleged BoM settled?

I would disagree with this.

The idea that all of the population of the Americas were Lamanites tends to have developed for other reasons than this passage of scripture (even if, eventually, this passage was used in this way).

The challenge with all of these discussions is a matter of textual interpretation - and this is a problem because we are dealing with the confluence of literary interpretation and hard science. Your argument seems to be, essentially, that as long as we interpret the Book of Mormon to mean X, then the science contradicts it. Apologists tend to argue that the text should be interpreted to mean Y, making this argument far less certain.

The claim that because the LDS Church has typically favored an interpretation like X isn't itself terribly meaningful. It doesn't require that X be an accurate belief.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like arguments that rest on a principle of plausibility. But, I also dislike arguments that require us to accept a specific interpretation of the text. The claim of X (that the land was empty when the Lehite migration arrived) is, at least textually, incoherent. Why? Because when Lehi arrives in the New World, there is (at the very least) a Jaredite population, who would continue to exist for at least another 300 years. The idea that the Jaredites were actually completely wiped out to the last man is historically implausible. Once the Nephites and Lamanites had separated, the text very quickly notes that they lost the language of their fathers (the Nephite language) and they forgot their history. And because of this, any others in the land would be indistinguishable from the Lamanites (from the Nephite perspective). So the idea that the text could (and perhaps should) be interpreted as Y (that there were potentially a lot of others in the land) when the Nephites arrived is probably preferable to X.

This isn't the only issue. There are other points of interpretation. The view that the Americas were uninhabited when Lehi shows up (except for the Jaredites) requires us to understand 2 Nephi 1:10's use of "a land of promise" and "a land for the inheritance of my seed" to refer to the entire continent(s). But it is Lehi who says this. And the Nephites depart from the land of their inheritance shortly afterward. Jacob at the end of his book is mourning the fact that the Nephites were apparently not righteous enough to regain the land of their inheritance (unlike the 40 years in the wilderness that Moses spent, the Nephites were not able to re-enter that land). This tends to create problems for the interpretation that 2 Nephi 1 excludes other people in all of the Americas. And such a reading allows us to contextualize the presence of a Jaredite remnant (along with any number of other groups) that could exist under Y.

And of course, such literary interpretation isn't without corollary. There is that famous instance of the Merneptah stele, which reads in part: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." We could assert (on the basis of that text) that the Book of Mormon couldn't be accurate because Pharoah Merneptah wiped out the Israelites completely hundreds of years before Lehi was born. The reality is that historical texts are themselves a combination of things that force us to consider all sorts of factors in interpretation. So the idea that we need to interpret the text as X also implies that a degree of literalism is also a necessary part of reading.

No matter which way we go, we get back to the problem of a hard science meeting literary interpretations.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't have any record of the Nephites within the genetic pool of the Americas. And in that regard, I think that Southerton's approach has improved since he first began to engage this topic - he is, I think, working to find arguments that are less dependent on textual interpretation. From the perspective of a believing LDS member, what we can draw from his research is that it is really likely that certain interpretations of the text (like this one presented by Teancum) are almost certainly wrong.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[mfbukowski]

31 minutes ago, Teancum said:

How so?  The BoM makes verifiable claims.  So if you believe them you have the burden of proof.

You may be and that is fine. But other on this thread and the Church does not view it this way.

1, The church allows my position with the temple recommend interview as the standard. Nothing about literal history.

2. I don't care about what others on this thread say, why should I ? 

3. Regarding "verifiable claims", we have gone over it again and again that your position of logical positivism is self contradictory in a religious or moral context.

Is murder wrong? What evidence do you have for that? What even are the meanings of right and wrong in your world view? 

You will of course not reply, based on verifiable history of our previous discussions.  Yet I feel a kinship with you; I have "been there" myself 😉.

Best wishes my friend!

Edited February 23, 2023 by mfbukowski