Archaeological Evidences for the Book of Mormon?

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JamesCollins said:
Mormons tell me that God has hidden all of these artifacts so that people have to rely on faith to accept the Book of Mormon. If such artifacts were found everyone would know that Jesus is the Christ and they would be under greater condemnation for rejecting it. God has made the artifacts slippery so they go back into the earth when people try to find them so they don’t condemn themselves through their unbelief …
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The Mormon God is a God of mind games apparently. :confused:🤷
 
JamesCollins said:
The only evidence most Christians think is important is the resurrection of Jesus. That will always be a matter of faith no matter how much archaeological evidence is found. I suppose they could find something between the resurrection and the ascension that would negate the need for faith any longer, but that is far-fetched. The Christian faith stands or falls with the resurrection and if anything were found to prove that it was absolutely true the need for faith would be over.

If we were actually to find a valid history of the Nephites in some ancient temple then we would no longer need to exercise faith to believe in the Book of Mormon. That wouldn’t prove the LDS Church is true, but it would probably mean we’d be looking at religion a whole lot differently than we do now. The only question for me would be whether or not I would go back to the LDS Church or become a member of the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would no longer have a reason to remain Catholic if the Book of Mormon were beyond reason of doubt proven to be true. Of course that isn’t going to happen.
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Good points all.
 
Ridgerunner said:
My impression has always been that there is essentially no archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon.
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In fact, there are more posts on this thread than there is archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon.
 
PaulDupre1 said:
Good points all.
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You know one of the strange things in Mormon history is the time recorded in the Book of Commandments where Joseph Smith was supposedly told the only gift he would be given would be to translate the Book of Mormon and that he would receive no other gift. Then his god supposedly changed his tune later on and in the Doctrine and Covenants he is told that he wouldn’t receive any other gifts until the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph’s god couldn’t even figure out what the Book of Mormon was supposed to accomplish so his god apparently changed his mind and changed his revelation. Can’t expect to see much archaeological evidence from a god like that.
 
Hi LW, if you read No Man Knows My History,Fawn Brodie makes the case for JS setting his book in the area around where he grew up. Citing the evidence for this in the Native American forts etc that existed there, and of course other texts that were extant at the time, that she believed inspired him. Also, she felt that hill Cumarah was definitely in that region.
 
Here’s my take for what it’s worth -

I do believe that it is/would have been possible for an ancient people to make a sea-crossing from the Mediteranean region to the Americas. Granted it may not have been quite as long ago, but witness the Polynesian people - started out in what is now India and ended up as far east as Hawai’i and Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

That said, I am part Native American - some of my ancestors have lived in the same state I reside it (and even in the same city for that matter!) for 10,000 years. Granted there was no written tradition, but people who have no written tradition typically have a phenomenal oral tradition. It is/was simply part of the culture; the tribal “storyteller/record keeper”, if you will.

What strikes me about the Book of Mormon is that the presence of a foreign people in what is now Meso-America (even if most of the land they supposedly inhabited, if memory serves me, apparently sank into the ocean at some point) is in NO way attested in the oral traditions of the native people who still live there. There are no legends, no stories, no myths, nothing!

Knowing how the tribal oral tradition works, it’s almost inconceivable that if those things happened (even as long ago as purported), there would have survived SOMETHING, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, in the oral traditions to the present day.

Here where I live (northern New England), there are a few stories and legends, particularly from the Mi’kmaq tradition (okay, granted the Mi’kmaq are not northern NE, more Canadian Maritime, but there was a lot of intermarriage and mixing of virtually identical Wabanaki cultures), which bear striking similar characteristics of Norse legends/mythology/religion; for example, Odin had his ravens, in the Mi’kmaq tradition - Gluskabe had his loons. There are other similarities which seem to strongly allude to a contact between the Wabanaki and Norse and a sharing (to some degree) of oral traditions.

My point is that even if there were no archaeological evidence of Norsemen in what is now North America, there is SOMETHING there in the oral traditions in the Native people who still live there that still exist to this day.

I don’t think the same can be said of any oral traditions of any modern Meso-American indigenous peoples today. There’s simply nothing in their oral traditions that indicate they were once visited by that many people from a place across the sea.

I’m not saying the people referenced in the BoM didn’t exist, I just don’t think if they did, they ever made it to the New World.
 
Medawlinno said:
Here where I live (northern New England), there are a few stories and legends, particularly from the Mi’kmaq tradition (okay, granted the Mi’kmaq are not northern NE, more Canadian Maritime, but there was a lot of intermarriage and mixing of virtually identical Wabanaki cultures), which bear striking similar characteristics of Norse legends/mythology/religion; for example, Odin had his ravens, in the Mi’kmaq tradition - Gluskabe had his loons. There are other similarities which seem to strongly allude to a contact between the Wabanaki and Norse and a sharing (to some degree) of oral traditions.

My point is that even if there were no archaeological evidence of Norsemen in what is now North America, there is SOMETHING there in the oral traditions in the Native people who still live there that still exist to this day.

I don’t think the same can be said of any oral traditions of any modern Meso-American indigenous peoples today. There’s simply nothing in their oral traditions that indicate they were once visited by that many people from a place across the sea.

I’m not saying the people referenced in the BoM didn’t exist, I just don’t think if they did, they ever made it to the New World.
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Of course a lot of Mormons don’t believe the Book of Mormon took place in Meso America. Many believe the Book of Mormon took place in an area around the Great Lakes region:

bookofmormonlands.com/

Some are trying to claim the Mi’kmaq tradition could include the Book of Mormon peoples:

bookofmormonlands.com/bomlands_007.htm

There aren’t any real archaeologists that accept any of this stuff.
 
I kind of always thought it would have been more around the Great Lakes region as well given that Smith got the plates in western NY. That would be the Ojibwe and various Irroquois people in that area. Nothing in their oral traditions either.

LOL - Yeah, I’m a Linguist and have seen the Mi’kmaq “hieroglyphic” writing system as well as the Ojibwe birch bark scrolls. Pre-missionary usage was quite limited and probably only consisted of a few logographs. mainly used as a mnemonic. The Medawiwin (Ojibwe medicine men) have a longer and more complex tradition of writing on birch bark, but again, these are mainly mnemonics to help remember long ceremonies and medicinal treatments. They are not a writing system per se. Hieroglyphics were more a complex mixed system of writing; alphabetic, syllabic and logographic and the usage bears little resemblance to how they are used in the Native Amrican traditions.

I actually have a copy of Fell’s book - admittedly it’s a pretty interesting read, but you have to take his work with a huge grain of salt; he was a (marine) zoologist, not an epigrapher or linguist. I am familiar with Abenaki and to some extent Mi’kmaq - the claims he makes about the supposed Egyptian connection to the languages (mainly in place names) clearly demonstrates his lack of understanding any Wabanaki language and/or grammar.

Many of the Mi’kmaq logograms were constructed by French missionaries who used them in much the same way as they were used pre-contact; as a mnemonic for reading/remembering Christian prayers, etc.

I think the fact that symbols used bear some resemblance to Egyptian hieratic or hieroglyphs is simply cooincidental; if you want to employ a mnemonic for the concept of “sky/star/heaven/celestial”, you’re not going to draw a stylized picture of a rabbit; you’re probably going to draw a star no matter if you’re Egyptian or Mi’kmaq.
 
I also meant to add that in the link provided, Mormon says that if the plates would have been larger, Hebrew would have been used - something to that effect.

The thing is, the hieratic form of Egyptian hieroglyps (which seem to be what the plates employed) would take up just as much, if not more, room than Hebrew. Hieratic was used by scribes as a sort of cursive form of writing to not only make writing go quicker, but to also take up less room on a given sheet of papyrus (it was a long process to make papyrus “paper” - the more you could write on a given sheet, the better - sort of like all the abreviations you see on employed by scribes on parchment).

There is no language called “reformed Egyptian”, but…if it was the writing being referred to, I could see that term possibly being used - i.e. hieratic could have been seen as a “reformed” way to write Egyptian. The thing is too that although Egyptian writing appears on virtaully every object (apparently people liked writing on things!), the average person would not have been able to read it; particularly hieratic - it was very specific to what school you went to to learn it. The hieratic of Alexandria doesn’t look quite like the hieratic of Memphis or Thebes. This is even more so for the “abreviated” form of hieratic called Demotic (it’s no wonder why in Helenistic times, scribes finally adopted a normal alphabet in the form of a variation of the Greek alphabet).
 
Medawlinno said:
I also meant to add that in the link provided, Mormon says that if the plates would have been larger, Hebrew would have been used - something to that effect.

The thing is, the hieratic form of Egyptian hieroglyps (which seem to be what the plates employed) would take up just as much, if not more, room than Hebrew. Hieratic was used by scribes as a sort of cursive form of writing to not only make writing go quicker, but to also take up less room on a given sheet of papyrus (it was a long process to make papyrus “paper” - the more you could write on a given sheet, the better - sort of like all the abreviations you see on employed by scribes on parchment).

There is no language called “reformed Egyptian”, but…if it was the writing being referred to, I could see that term possibly being used - i.e. hieratic could have been seen as a “reformed” way to write Egyptian. The thing is too that although Egyptian writing appears on virtaully every object (apparently people liked writing on things!), the average person would not have been able to read it; particularly hieratic - it was very specific to what school you went to to learn it. The hieratic of Alexandria doesn’t look quite like the hieratic of Memphis or Thebes. This is even more so for the “abreviated” form of hieratic called Demotic (it’s no wonder why in Helenistic times, scribes finally adopted a normal alphabet in the form of a variation of the Greek alphabet).
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Thanks so much for chiming in and sharing all of this interesting information! 👍
 
JamesCollins said:
The only evidence most Christians think is important is the resurrection of Jesus. That will always be a matter of faith no matter how much archaeological evidence is found. I suppose they could find something between the resurrection and the ascension that would negate the need for faith any longer, but that is far-fetched. The Christian faith stands or falls with the resurrection and if anything were found to prove that it was absolutely true the need for faith would be over.

If we were actually to find a valid history of the Nephites in some ancient temple then we would no longer need to exercise faith to believe in the Book of Mormon. That wouldn’t prove the LDS Church is true, but it would probably mean we’d be looking at religion a whole lot differently than we do now. The only question for me would be whether or not I would go back to the LDS Church or become a member of the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would no longer have a reason to remain Catholic if the Book of Mormon were beyond reason of doubt proven to be true. Of course that isn’t going to happen.
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Except we know that Jesus was an actual man, and the Apostles were actual men in history. And after the man Jesus was crucified, these Apostles began to claim that Jesus was not dead after all, but alive! These ordinary, historical men, began to lead extraordinary lives spreading the good news. And not only did they dedicate the rest of their lives traveling to spread the good news and teach the Gospel, most of them died as martrys for this Gospel, their bloodshed stands as a witness to the truth, otherwise why would they give up their life for a lie? We know this b/c of oral tradition and written histories dating all the way back to the 1st century. So, yes, we still need faith to believe in God and His great love for us, but we also have actual evidence that these things took place, that the Gospel was not randomly made up, like the BOM seems to be. The Bible itself attests to the truth of Jesus. After all, it was written by many different people separated by different times and places, and yet Jesus still fulfilled over 300 individual prophecies. How could that be unless it was Divine?
 
Medawlinno said:
I also meant to add that in the link provided, Mormon says that if the plates would have been larger, Hebrew would have been used - something to that effect.

The thing is, the hieratic form of Egyptian hieroglyps (which seem to be what the plates employed) would take up just as much, if not more, room than Hebrew. Hieratic was used by scribes as a sort of cursive form of writing to not only make writing go quicker, but to also take up less room on a given sheet of papyrus (it was a long process to make papyrus “paper” - the more you could write on a given sheet, the better - sort of like all the abreviations you see on employed by scribes on parchment).

There is no language called “reformed Egyptian”, but…if it was the writing being referred to, I could see that term possibly being used - i.e. hieratic could have been seen as a “reformed” way to write Egyptian. The thing is too that although Egyptian writing appears on virtaully every object (apparently people liked writing on things!), the average person would not have been able to read it; particularly hieratic - it was very specific to what school you went to to learn it. The hieratic of Alexandria doesn’t look quite like the hieratic of Memphis or Thebes. This is even more so for the “abreviated” form of hieratic called Demotic (it’s no wonder why in Helenistic times, scribes finally adopted a normal alphabet in the form of a variation of the Greek alphabet).
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Enjoy reading all of your information. Good work.👍
 
JamesCollins said:
Of course a lot of Mormons don’t believe the Book of Mormon took place in Meso America. Many believe the Book of Mormon took place in an area around the Great Lakes region:

bookofmormonlands.com/

Some are trying to claim the Mi’kmaq tradition could include the Book of Mormon peoples:

bookofmormonlands.com/bomlands_007.htm

There aren’t any real archaeologists that accept any of this stuff.
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Of course, the only BoM site we know of for sure is the Hill Cumorah in New York. Joseph Smith reported that the angel Moroni led him to a stone box buried in the side of the hill. When Joseph pried the lid off of the box, he found inside the gold plates, just where Moroni had put them 1,400 years earlier. Joseph took out the plates, resealed the box and took the plates home.

My question is: where is the stone box? The LDS claim it was there in the hill for 1,400 years. It should be there still. Great! let’s go see it, carbon date it, take some pictures, even swab the lid for DNA.

If the stone box is really there, what is there to hide?

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
 
JamesCollins said:
Of course a lot of Mormons don’t believe the Book of Mormon took place in Meso America. Many believe the Book of Mormon took place in an area around the Great Lakes region:

bookofmormonlands.com/

Some are trying to claim the Mi’kmaq tradition could include the Book of Mormon peoples:

bookofmormonlands.com/bomlands_007.htm

There aren’t any real archaeologists that accept any of this stuff.
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I think it all came from Joseph Smith’s imagination!. God Bless. Memaw
 
Memaw said:
I think it all came from Joseph Smith’s imagination!. God Bless. Memaw
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I think it all came from Solomon Spaulding’s imagination and Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith plagiarized it.
 
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