Note: Much of the content in this podcast can be found in show participant Ross Anderson’s book Understanding the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon claims to be an ancient scripture that tells the story of God’s people in the American continent.
LDS challenge: “Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is, or this Church and its founder are false, a deception from the first instance onward…Joseph must be accepted either as a prophet of God or else as a charlatan of the first order…” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Christ and the New Covenant,” quoted in Ensign, September 2002, 14)
To accept BoM is to accept JS as a prophet, and everything that he stands for.
The Book of Mormon claims can be / should be tested. 1 Thess 5:21 “Test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.”
Archaeology
- BoM claims to be an ancient record of American continent
- Featuring great cities, people at war
- Archaeology has failed to unearth any concrete evidence for BoM
- Inscriptional evidence → names carved into stone monuments
- Example: Sennacherib / Assyrians = names of Israel’s kings
- No BoM name every found
- Material remains → walls / foundations of ancient cities
- Plenty of ancient cities in America, but none that can be linked to BoM
- Example: BoM describes its people using gold, silver, iron, brass, copper
- The mining, smelting, and casting of metal ores requires special tools / complex processes which leave traces in the archaeological record
- Scholars generally agree: metallurgy not introduced into America until several centuries after the BoM story ends
- Animals → BoM mentions many different kinds of animals: cattle, sheep, goats, horses
- None have been found in any archaeological setting dating to BoM times
- Unlike deer, jaguar, peccary, tapir, other native species
- The horse have never been found depicted in any of 1000s of sample of art
- New world archaeology is still a young science
- Perhaps some day some artifact or inscription will be found to validate the BoM
- But so far, best LDS apologists can do = create aura of plausibility based on vague similarities
- By contrast, archaeology has repeatedly demonstrated the reliability of Bible: historically / geographically
- Use of metals as describe in Bible can be verified at many sites
- A person can visit the actual cities where Bible describes Jesus or Paul travelling
- British Museum (London)
- Massive stone panels from ancient Ninevah → cities in Bible are recorded there
Evidence for the reliability of the Bible: “Three Reasons to Trust the Bible”
DNA
- Traditional LDS understanding - based on BoM story → native Americans are descended from ancient Jews who left Jerusalem for America around 600 BC
- This is what JS taught → the most straightforward way to read the BoM text
- Mainstream science → all native Americans are of Asian origin
- Supported by extensive DNA sampling of American Indian populations
- Many current LDS scholars claim that most NA’s are of Asian descent
- While a small subset are of Semitic origin, descended from Lehi
- Idea is = Nephite & Lamanite civilizations described in BoM made up a very small % of total population of New World during BoM times
- LDS Church has acknowledged the challenges
- 1981 BoM: identifies Lamanites as “the principle ancestors of the American Indians”
- 2006 BoM: Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians”
- If BoM peoples were not alone in the Americas, it’s very surprising that...
