Horses in Ancient America?

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

Issue 1: There are no apparent "first readers" of the Book of Mormon who vocally gave an interpretation exclusive of anti-masonry. Therefore you claim that the best assumption is that all of the first readers read anti-masonry into the text.

You

[Beowulf]

Dan Vogel writes:

Every culture is larger than its texts.

This is absolutely the case. What we don't know about past civilizations far exceeds what we do know.

Our view of the mankind's past is very sketchy indeed. Something I learned in graduate school classes covering both the Far East (China and Japan) and the West (Classical Greece).

Which, to get back to the recent posts on this thread, means that we simply cannot make modern-day (or 19th-century) assumptions about the text of the BofM (such as what "horses and chariots" means), because we know too little about the wider culture surrounding the Mesoamerican background to the BofM.

Beowulf

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

I am curious. Let's take the caloric theory of heat as a basis for discussion. The basis of this theory was the notion that heat was a liquid (independant of matter although co-existent with it) and was conserved (neither created nor destroyed). Do you believe that this point cannot be disproved in absolute terms?

Right, because all theories are underdetermined. I think the fastest way to answer this would be to quote philosophers Theodore Schick, Jr., and Lewis Vaughn:

In general, any hypothesis can be maintained in the face of seemingly adverse evidence if we

[Beowulf]

That's interesting. I should look up that book.

Thanks

Beowulf

[Dan Vogel]

USU78,

Do you think only Mormons who have not experienced spiritual witness can change their minds about BofM historicity?

Interesting question. After thinking about it for quite a while, I conclude, "Yes."

What I

[USU78]

DV:

If Zarahemla were discovered with Coriantumr

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan writes:

You

[Dale]

Hi,

Personally I think horses could indeed be bad translations for other animals foreign to Joseph Smith Jr's culture. the term horse can mean horse. But if you apply the term horse to a strange animal horse might not mean horse.

The scientific community has so decided against horses in Meso-america that genuine horse bones dating to earlier times could have been discarded without proper testing. Those dating tests have to be expensive & who would want to be a laughing stock among the so-called experts.

Sincerely,

Dale

[beastie]

The scientific community has so decided against horses in Meso-america that genuine horse bones dating to earlier times could have been discarded without proper testing. Those dating tests have to be expensive & who would want to be a laughing stock among the so-called experts.

Please back up this assertion with hard facts, dates, names, etc.

CI, I'll get back to you. With pleasure.

[ScriptureLover]

This reminds me, the Book of Mormon definitely posits that Nephi had a horse. He says several times, and his name was "Beuntoyou." He says "Whoa [woe] be unto you!"

SL

[Dale]

Beastie Present me your proof this has never happened if you can. Obviously person's brought horses to the new world with them. A horse dies & leaves bones. If they found one at an archeological dig they would assume it's a spaniards old dead horse bone.

Sincerely,

Dale

[beastie]

Beastie Present me your proof this has never happened if you can. Obviously person's brought horses to the new world with them. A horse dies & leaves bones. If they found one at an archeological dig they would assume it's a spaniards old dead horse bone.

As soon as you present me proof that the US government has never ignored or covered up alien bones.

Seriously, Dale, this isn't the way it works. If you make a claim, and a very serious one at that, you ought to be able to back it up. You can't retreat by asking the person who questioned you to prove it "never happened". Just where did you get this idea, anyway, that archaeologists are running around willy-nilly ignoring horse bones?

CI - this is the first installment.

I can tell you

[Confidential Informant]

You can certainly continue w/ your posts beastie, but it become clear that you've missed the point. Moreover, why is it that you can only resort to infering that Clark is being dishonest? Are you so sure that you are correct that the only paradigm you can accept is one where the experts who disagree with you are simply disingenuine? Have you ever entertained the possibility that, as both Ben and Brant have so often noted, you simply aren't comprehending what is being said and don't have the background to do so?

I can tell you’re a fan of Clark, for more reasons than his recent glimmer of horse hope. I suggest caution. Let me demonstrate why.

You can tell no such thing. In fact, I barely know Clark. However, if it comes down to a question between his expertise and understanding versus yours, I know who I'm pitching my tent with. BTW, are you aware that Clark and Coe are friends?

The book’s description of ancient peoples differs greatly from the notions of rude savages held by nineteenth-century Americans.

I do not think he is referring to that whichyou think he is referring to. In fact, you have ignored the rest of his statement.

You say:

It was actually common in JS period to believe that two races had lived on this continent, and one was civilized, enlightened, while the other barbaric. The barbaric race eventually destroyed the civilized race.

But Clark makes clear exactly what he's talking about:

The book’s claim of city-societies was laughable at the time, but no one is laughing now.

His D.C., presentation was filled w/ more of the same. He clearly appears to be referring to specific details from the text rather than the over-arching themes that you seem to be referring to. You are simply illuminating the prior point I made. You suggest that Smith simply stole ideas that were prevalent in his cultural milieu, but you fail to account for the specific details that he got right, not only from Mesoamerican history, but from Jewish antiquity also. (See Barker's D.C., presentation re: Wisdom/Ashera and Tree of Life descriptions).

Moreover, you continue to suffer from the same evidentiary problem that I've point out before. You cannot place the information in Joseph's hands and, in fact, all the eyewitnes testimony from the time period specifically states that he used no sources. Just when and where did he find access to these sources?

I do, however, really like your evidentiary approach and wish that I could apply it to my own field. Say I had a murder case where the victim was shot dead. I have a suspect. Under your evidentiary paradigm, I don't have to put the gun in his hands. I don't have to prove that he had access to a gun. All I have to prove is that guns exist! GUILTY! I love it!

Your comments on infant baptism are interesting, but not relevant to what I was saying. I am well aware of the debates regarding pedobaptism that occurred in Joseph's time period.

It seems reasonable that Brant be able to provide evidence that the topic of infant baptism was of interest to the period of that time period, since he is claiming that the BoM makes so many cultural “hits” for the exact time period and area of mesoamerica.

Why is that reasonable? How much of the internal relgioius and ideological debates of the ancient maya and their subsets have actually been preserved? Little to none that I'm aware of. So why is Brant responsible to show something when no other archeologist could show anything even remotely comparable?

Yucatan was in the northern area, the area that both Sorenson and Hauck seem to ignore. In addition, the time period for the above events was immediately prior to conquest- around 1500 AD. This leaves aside the fact that the “baptism” described has almost no similarities to the baptism Moroni obsesses about.

So, in your view, idea and concepts should never experience a geographical shift? They should always stay rooted in the exact area where they were fomented? That appears to be what you are stating.

As to the dating, doesn't the 1500 AD ritual at least suggest a much older provinence? I'm curious as to whether any "real" anthropologists would agree with your complaints? As I recall, FARMS had published some information on this but perhaps that is what Brant has quoted.

In short, I find your objections contrived. Have you found a source yet that gives the correct dating for the Olmecs?

C.I.

[beastie]

CI -

I'll have to return to this argument later - perhaps tomorrow, but definitely by this weekend. I do have one quick response, however, to Coe and Clark being friends.

I am aware that Coe uses some of Clark's articles as references in his books. I did not know they were personal friends. However, I wouldn't go around trumpeting that too much, given Coe's previous statement:

Michael Coe, "Mormons and Archeology: An Outside View," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer 1973), p. 42

[beastie]

His D.C., presentation was filled w/ more of the same. He clearly appears to be referring to specific details from the text rather than the over-arching themes that you seem to be referring to. You are simply illuminating the prior point I made. You suggest that Smith simply stole ideas that were prevalent in his cultural milieu, but you fail to account for the specific details that he got right, not only from Mesoamerican history, but from Jewish antiquity also. (See Barker's D.C., presentation re: Wisdom/Ashera and Tree of Life descriptions).

Would you please clarify what it is about the "city societies" in the BoM that is such a strikingly correct Mesoamerican detail? And why does this second statement negate the first - Clark is clearly stating that people in JS' time period viewed the ancient inhabitants of America as rude savages, which is easily demonstrated to be incorrect.

Moreover, you continue to suffer from the same evidentiary problem that I've point out before. You cannot place the information in Joseph's hands and, in fact, all the eyewitnes testimony from the time period specifically states that he used no sources. Just when and where did he find access to these sources?

JS lived in a period and area in which there were intense interest in certain subjects. JS was involved in this interest, by his own admission. He attended church, and revivals, and likely engaged in lively conversations on various subjects (he was even in a young debater's club). He wasn't stupid, and he didn't live under a rock. Again, you want to suggest that, unless actual documents can be placed in his hands (and some have been shown to be quite available), this contemporary evidence is insignifant. Yet it is crucial in determining the dating of a claimed historical document. From an article about the use of parallels:

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/parallels.html

4. The influence of ideas.

This is a complex and difficult category that can be broken down into a number of subcategories. Provisionally, I suggest:

i. Familiarity with a certain work or body of literature.

ii. Familiarity with a certain set of doctrines or a certain viewpoint.

iii. A shared cultural patterns that helps order the data (e.g., epic themes).

iv. A shared cultural background. These ideas spread by osmosis throughout a culture and may be found in widely different groups that are members of the culture.

v. The historical trajectory of an idea or a complex of ideas.

vi. The life situation and/or the meaning of a difficult text.

You can't divorce JS from his culture, and the ideas popular within that culture, simply because he didn't leave a library card behind. There are just too many other reasonable possibilities. Oliver Cowdery, for example, was connected to Ethan Smith's congregation, IIRC. Or Spalding was very educated in these topics. And certainly newspaper articles of the time mentioned these ideas.

Why is that reasonable? How much of the internal relgioius and ideological debates of the ancient maya and their subsets have actually been preserved? Little to none that I'm aware of. So why is Brant responsible to show something when no other archeologist could show anything even remotely comparable?

Brant has created a long list of evidences for the Book of Mormon, including cultural hits. Culture of that time was, for all practical purposes, religion. Arthur Demarest, in his book Ancient Maya The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization, Cambridge Press, 2004, p 175:

While recent breakthroughs in heiroglyphic deciperhments have led to some new insights on Maya politics, and even some on economics, they have also led archaeologists back to the Mayanist obsession with elite culture, religion, and history.  Disproportionate study is again being devoted to the elite aspects of culture.  Remarkably, fo rthe ancient Maya we can now be more certain about aspects of their religon and worldview, as expressed through ritual, than about their economic activities and structure, the reverse of the state of knowledge on most truly prehistoric societies.

QUOTE 

Yucatan was in the northern area, the area that both Sorenson and Hauck seem to ignore. In addition, the time period for the above events was immediately prior to conquest- around 1500 AD. This leaves aside the fact that the

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

I am combining information from a couple of your posts. In the first instance it is required to adequately respond to one of your questions.

It was actually common in JS period to believe that two races had lived on this continent, and one was civilized, enlightened, while the other barbaric. The barbaric race eventually destroyed the civilized race. Sound familiar?

Would you please clarify what it is about the "city societies" in the BoM that is such a strikingly correct Mesoamerican detail? And why does this second statement negate the first - Clark is clearly stating that people in JS' time period viewed the ancient inhabitants of America as rude savages, which is easily demonstrated to be incorrect.

These two statements from different posts help illustrate part of the problem with a simplistic reading of the Book of Mormon. It is very easy, as you do in the first statement, to assume that the barbaric Lamanites conquered the civilized Nephites. There are even Nephite statements about the lazy Lamanites.

When you contrast that with the question for Dr. Clark's presentation the contrast becomes marked. Why does Dr. Clark think that city-states have anything to do with barbaric Lamanites? There were certainly a lot more Lamanites than Nephites.

Therein is the problem. While the text says that the Lamanites are barbaric, the evidence of the text itself shows them to be fully civilized and probably moreso than the Nephites. That is what Dr. Clark is talking about.

Let's take that information and return to your first question. Does the barbaric/civilized distinction sound familiar? Actually, no. It isn't represented in the text. The only evidence for it is statements that are very similar to those made by virtually any group about outsiders. Anthropologists have long recognized ethnocentrism as a typical human trait. We see it operating in the Book of Mormon just as we do when the Greeks came up with the term barbarian to describe anyone who wasn't Greek (and therefore civilized).

So - your first point as a parallel to the Book of Mormon has problems. The very parallel you expect from Joseph Smith's time - the very parallel that many early Saints saw in the text because they both read it simplistically and against their cultural assumptions - simply isn't reflected in the text. It isn't parallel at all.

Now we move to the question of what Dr. Clark sees as similar in the Mesoamerican city-states and the Book of Mormon. I don't know exactly what he sees, but I can guess at a lot of it. Governmental structures, inter-site relationships, tributary systems, trade relations, dominance of religion as a definer of people and politics, loose hegemonies of cities, lack of standing armies, lack of police forces - militia that are recruited from the populace, pressure for kings and social hierarchies, governments by council when a king is rejected by a community. There are proabably more.

The likely source of his comments about baptism? From Coe,

[beastie]

Brant and CI,

I'll return to your comments here later, but right now would like you to read and comment on my Sorenson/Linne post.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

From an article about the use of parallels:

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/parallels.html

This again? It's been what, a year since our last discussion? You write:

You can't divorce JS from his culture, and the ideas popular within that culture, simply because he didn't leave a library card behind. There are just too many other reasonable possibilities. Oliver Cowdery, for example, was connected to Ethan Smith's congregation, IIRC. Or Spalding was very educated in these topics. And certainly newspaper articles of the time mentioned these ideas.

All of this reminds me of a statement you made quite some time ago to me:

Just proving that these ideas WERE in JS' environment is sufficient.

Typically you don't bother evaluating the parallels. You simply propose them. You engage in parallelomania. I love your notion of "reasonable possibilities". You present the unfalsifiable argument. (We note that Davila makes this statement: "Beware of unfalsifiable parallels.") You make no effort to differentiate between good and bad parallels (except perhaps on the basis of supporting or not supporting your pre-existing conclusion).

Ben

[beastie]

These two statements from different posts help illustrate part of the problem with a simplistic reading of the Book of Mormon. It is very easy, as you do in the first statement, to assume that the barbaric Lamanites conquered the civilized Nephites. There are even Nephite statements about the lazy Lamanites.

When you contrast that with the question for Dr. Clark's presentation the contrast becomes marked. Why does Dr. Clark think that city-states have anything to do with barbaric Lamanites? There were certainly a lot more Lamanites than Nephites.

Therein is the problem. While the text says that the Lamanites are barbaric, the evidence of the text itself shows them to be fully civilized and probably moreso than the Nephites. That is what Dr. Clark is talking about.

Please provide the citations from the BoM that show the Lamanites are fully civilized, even moreso than the Nephites.

Let's take that information and return to your first question. Does the barbaric/civilized distinction sound familiar? Actually, no. It isn't represented in the text. The only evidence for it is statements that are very similar to those made by virtually any group about outsiders. Anthropologists have long recognized ethnocentrism as a typical human trait. We see it operating in the Book of Mormon just as we do when the Greeks came up with the term barbarian to describe anyone who wasn't Greek (and therefore civilized).

The statements made by

[beastie]

1) Mesoamerica shared a large number of traits across regions and specific cultures. Infant washing/baptism is known form the Maya and the Aztecs. That gives a wide enough cultural spread to assume it is one of the fairly universal Mesoamerican traits, not the isolated Yucatecan case you suggest.

First, can you provide more support for the Maya portion of your assertion? As you have pointed out yourself in the past, the Aztecs are different in several fundamental ways, so I

[beastie]

Typically you don't bother evaluating the parallels. You simply propose them. You engage in parallelomania. I love your notion of "reasonable possibilities". You present the unfalsifiable argument. (We note that Davila makes this statement: "Beware of unfalsifiable parallels.") You make no effort to differentiate between good and bad parallels (except perhaps on the basis of supporting or not supporting your pre-existing conclusion).

Ben, I'm sorry, the only label appropriate for this statement is nonsense. I have spent hours supporting parallels I've noted in the past, such as the masonic connection to the Gadiaton Robbers. The fact that you reject the support for these parallels as superficial does not mean that I have not evaluated the parallel. It means that you disagree with me on its strength.

Your statement would be the equivalent of me stating you typically don't evaluate your favorite parallels, (like Hebraisms). Instead, I realize that you do evaluate them, you just find the support for them more convincing than I do, and the criticisms against them weaker. We just disagree.

In reference to my former statement regarding demonstrating that these ideas were in JS environment is sufficient:

Typically, the argument proposed by BoM apologists is that it is simply not possible that JS wrote the BoM. To refute this, all that is necessary is to demonstrate that the ideas within the BoM were common to his time period. JS, as a produce of that time period, was certainly capable of capturing those ideas in a work of fiction, as innumerable people of done in the past in other time periods.

Moreover, a supernatural explanation should only be accepted as more reasonable if there is no possible natural explanation (excluding natural explanations that are so unlikely that are, for practical purposes, supernatural). I know that you fundamentally disagree with that statement. We will have to agree to disagree. I cannot imagine living in a world in which supernatural explanations are viewed as just as reasonable as feasible natural explanations, but I understand that is the world in which you live.

What BoM apologetics has descended to, as the evidence demonstrating nineteenth century correlation with the ideas therein has grown, is demonstrated by CI's comments. Now the critics have to actually place texts within JS' hands, not just demonstrate that these texts (and religious sermons) were common in JS time period.

It is often simply impossible to definitively prove how various past crimes or acts of fraud were committed. Reasonable scenarios can be offered and evaluated, but without written or taped confessions we are always speculating.

But we (including EA from Z, who has explained this far more sufficiently than me) have been over this ground repeatedly, and I understand you simply do not agree.

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

Since you are concerned with the viability of extrapolating information from different Mesoamerican cultures over time, allow me to pose a question to you.

In Maya Cosmos Freidel, Schele and Parker use modern Maya ritual to extract information with which they interpret Classic Maya iconography.

There are about a thousands years difference in time.

They are different language groups.

They are different cultural groups (although Maya - which covers a lot of variation).

They compare a popular religion to an elite religion.

They compare modern observed practice to artistic representations (which are rather baroque).

What did they do wrong? According to your criticism of my comments, we should toss the entire book. Of course the understanding of Mesoamerica would be much the poorer for it. So - what have they done wrong - or why does their method differ from what I am suggesting?

As for the comparability of Aztec and Maya cultures, that is a long story and there are very certainly differences among the similarities. Nevertheless, there are a lot of similarities even if Demarest didn't list them. I published an article on the creation mythology of the Aztecs and compared it to the versions available for the Maya. They are obviously shared. The calendar names are obviously shared.

[sidewinder]

Brant,

I'd like to see your answer to CIs question. I want to keep this simple, and the below explanation is only for the purpose distilling the difference between the relative strength of verification verses falsification and also what it takes to build a serious case on verification.

A) Let's say that archeologists one day are able to turn enough soil that we could say it's virtually impossible for there to have been horses in the BOM time and place. Let's say that we are constrained to a very literal reading of the text, and that horses in the BOM are in fact the horses we are all familiar with that people ride and that pull chariots.

-This alone would count as evidence against the BOM as a historical document from the time period it claims. Whould you disagree?

B) Now let's say that archeologists one day find horses like crazy, and further, that they were used just like a superficial reading of the BOM indicates they were used. They were ridden, pulled chariots, and whatever else.

-Would this alone count as evidence in favor of the BOM as a historical document?

Finally, given the knowledge we have of mesoamerica today, all other things being equal, would B count as evidence in favor of the BOM as a historical document with the same strength that A would count against it?

[Brant Gardner]

Sidewinder:

Let's say we rediscover the paltes and read them in the original language and they say there were horses and chariots (in some Old World language). We then find that there were none. Does that count as a damning anachronism? Yes.

If they find horses all over the place does it prove the Book of Mormon true? No, because the text doesn't clearly show anyone doing horse-things with the horse.

I'd be happy about it because I wouldn't have to hear about it so much - but it wouldn't really change anything. Frankly, I'm not quite sure what would, given what is reasonable found in archaeological sites.

[beastie]

What did they do wrong? According to your criticism of my comments, we should toss the entire book. Of course the understanding of Mesoamerica would be much the poorer for it. So - what have they done wrong - or why does their method differ from what I am suggesting?

As for the comparability of Aztec and Maya cultures, that is a long story and there are very certainly differences among the similarities. Nevertheless, there are a lot of similarities even if Demarest didn't list them. I published an article on the creation mythology of the Aztecs and compared it to the versions available for the Maya. They are obviously shared. The calendar names are obviously shared.

Obviously, you do understand my point after all, despite your momentary diversion in the first paragraph. Is this your way of saying there is no support for the infant baptism in the Maya culture?

Some more thoughts on some of the points Brant has brought up.

Tributary relationships