Paul,
I’m not sure I’m getting your first paragraph. Could you please rephrase or elaborate for me?
From Post 62
Sure, I shouldn’t try to write when I’m tried. I guess what I was trying to get at is, that we know a lot about real places that are mentioned in the Bible. We know where they are, we have done archaeological studies of these places, and we can place geographically, the stories found in the bible. The reason we can do this is that there has been a consistent transfer of culture and language from one generation to the next in the Biblical lands.
The language has not been lost because of extinction of the people; we still understand and can translate Hebrew and Greek. Many cities still bear the same name as in Biblical times. However, if the Jewish people had just disappeared with not one soul remaining, with none of the people who replaced them having any knowledge who the Jews were, I believe that even though we possessed writings of the Jews we would have no understanding of them, their cities, or culture. I can think of a couple of examples that might bare this idea out.
Take for example the colour “tekhelet”, it is a very important part of Jewish religious practice, even to this day. However, the production of real tekhelet has been lost, because the species of marine animal from which this colour was produced is no longer known - It was called a “chilazon”. Because the Romans outlawed the production of tekhelet, in time people forgot what the chilazon was. In recent times there has been considerable research as to the identity of this animal, some have been investigated, but there has been no agreement as to which animal meets the description, which was given 2000 years ago, of this animal. There has been a break in the transfer of this information from one generation to the next, with the result that a sure knowledge of this animal was lost to history.
Another example is Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, it was still understood at the time of Jesus, but sometime after, all understanding was lost as the culture was overwhelmed and replaced by others. That Great body of Egyptian history was a blank to us until a key stone was found which enabled the translation of the hieroglyphics.
These two examples may explain the lack of understandable evidence about the geography of the Book of Mormon. In the generations after the Book of Mormon record a similar break in the transfer of culture and linguistic information from one generation to the next has occurred. Archaeologists suggest that only a small portion of writings and cities have been uncovered and documented, it appears there is much yet to understand, learn and discover about the Book of Mormon lands.
I do not believe that these examples justify anything about the historicity Book of Mormon; however, it does give possible explanations as to the lack of, as some here put it, any real evidence. It is my opinion, there is too much argument surrounding things like honey bees and not enough attention to the treasure of lessons to be found in the Book of Mormon itself.
Paul
If some on here are alittle critical it might be because we are defending God’s church .
I ment that people here are defending there faith according to thier own beliefs and what they have been taught. I don’t think anyone here LDS or Catholic is distorting or stretching anything.
