Cumorah

[Ahimsa]

Ahimsa,

Linen is made only from the flax species “Linum usitatissimum”. That species is not native to the Americas and did not exist there prior to 1492. There was no barley or wheat of any kind domesticated in the Americas prior to 1492.

Meadow barley, BTW, is not edible, except by some waterfowl. Western wheatgrass is only edible by cattle and horses. You cannot just go out and pick up wild grasses and turn them into bread. It does not work that way. FAIR and FARMS are deceiving you.

All that is nice and good. I was simply correcting your statement that flax and barley were not native to the Americas, and your suggestion that the word “wheat” only referred to one single species.

 

[PaulDupre]

So you’ve seen pictures of the ruins of Gibeon, and Resen, and the 60 great cities of Bashan?

Yes, Gibeon was discovered in 1838, and interestingly the pool at Gibeon mentioned in Jeremiah 41:12 was discovered in 1956. It has large stone steps going down 36 feet into the huge stone pool that was the city’s water supply as well as the irrigation source for the wine industry in the area.

I have not seen Resen of course because its location is still unknown.

Bashan is known modernly as the Golan Heights. There are hundreds of excavations all over the Golan that have uncovered a number of the Bashan cities. Here is a link to a pretty good photo of the ruins of Dolmen, one of the cities of Bashan.

You should subscribe to Biblical Archaeology Review like I do. It’s full of good stuff like that. The latest issue had an article on Jezreel and Jezebel. Archeologists have discovered the actual spot in Jezreel where Jezebel was thrown out of a window to her death. Very cool.

The point here is that there is abundant archeological proof of the historicity of the bible. There is absolutely none for the Book of Mormon.

Doesn’t that give you pause? Can you explain it?

 

[lax16]

I’m saying they are native to America.

I’m assuming you are trying to tie this in to the discussion.

Are you saying that the BoM people who lived in the “America discovered by Columbus” utilized these items? Remember, saying “the Americas” is opening up the idea that the BoM peoples could have lived in other parts of the world and according to LDS teaching, that is not correct.

 

[PaulDupre]

Ahimsa,

If there is a species of wild flax native to America that cannot be used to make linen,

…and there is a species of wild “barley” native to America that is inedible,

…and there is a species of wild wheatgrass native to America that is inedible,

How the heck does that lend support to the Book of Mormon?

The desperation is palpable, and frankly pathetic.

 

[Returning_Home]

You asked for honesty. Here you go as to the passage in Galatians:

“Another gospel” would be a gospel that does not see that Peter declared that Christ is the Rock, and that there is no other rock upon which the gospel is based.

“Another gospel” would be a gospel that does not see that Christ fulfilled the prophecy by Isaiah (22:22-23) that the key of David would be upon Christ’s shoulder as He opens the doors of hell through His suffering of the atonement and His offer of grace and redemption.

“Another gospel” would replace the free will and choice of individuals to make personal covenants with the supposed free will and choice of parents (acting out of constraint due to misunderstanding the Bible) making the choice of being “born again” for an infant instead of waiting to allow the infant to grow into a person who can make their own personal choice and thus enter into a true covenant relationship.

Poor Parker, still playing word games to hide the black hole that is Mormonism. We both know that the ‘other gospel’ is one taught by men and not by God, which clearly defines Mormonism’s assertion that men become gods, that the savior is a product of incest and square peg in a round theological hole, that holds men to be essentially good, and that false prophecies are actually true.

That is another gospel. All you’ve done is prove that Joseph Smith took what parts of Christianity he liked and created something new and different with himself at the head and that the church has worked very hard to mainstream itself to apprear more Christian than the Mormonism of the 1830s.

Really, not meny would debate you on any of those points, be they Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical. They would, however, debate you on the fact that Mormonism tries to make Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit separate, that any sort of priesthood is required in our day, or that the church of Jesus Christ needed to be restored when it never left the earth.

As to the battlefield and bodily remains, are you saying that every battlefield place in the world that has ever been in all of time can be identified through bodily remains, and that the evidence is merely sitting there for all to see?

No one’s implying that but with 2.5 million dead in one place, there’s no way that all bits of evidence were spirited away by looters, animal, activity, or curious treasure hunters. Stop answering a question with a question and answer the charge already: why have no artifacts or evidence been found at the Hill Cumorah?

 

[twopekinguys]

I could make a fortune on a Mormon to Christian Dicitionary.

Sure would make it alot easier to understand each other.

 

[lax16]

Poor Parker, still playing word games to hide the black hole that is Mormonism. We both know that the ‘other gospel’ is one taught by men and not by God, which clearly defines Mormonism’s assertion that men become gods, that the savior is a product of incest and square peg in a round theological hole, that holds men to be essentially good, and that false prophecies are actually true.

That is another gospel. All you’ve done is prove that Joseph Smith took what parts of Christianity he liked and created something new and different with himself at the head and that the church has worked very hard to mainstream itself to apprear more Christian than the Mormonism of the 1830s.

Really, not meny would debate you on any of those points, be they Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical. They would, however, debate you on the fact that Mormonism tries to make Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit separate, that any sort of priesthood is required in our day, or that the church of Jesus Christ needed to be restored when it never left the earth.

No one’s implying that but with 2.5 million dead in one place, there’s no way that all bits of evidence were spirited away by looters, animal, activity, or curious treasure hunters. Stop answering a question with a question and answer the charge already: why have no artifacts or evidence been found at the Hill Cumorah?

Was there even a demand by treasure hunters back in the days of the BoM?
What can one do with all of that stuff and how would they haul it off? Where would they take it? Who would they trade with? There were no museums…

 

[Ahimsa]

Ahimsa,

If there is a species of wild flax native to America that cannot be used to make linen,

…and there is a species of wild “barley” native to America that is inedible,

…and there is a species of wild wheatgrass native to America that is inedible,

How the heck does that lend support to the Book of Mormon?

The desperation is palpable, and frankly pathetic.

Whether a statement supports the Book of Mormon is one thing.

Whether flax, barley, and “wheat” are native to America, is another.

 

[Ahimsa]

I’m assuming you are trying to tie this in to the discussion.

Are you saying that the BoM people who lived in the “America discovered by Columbus” utilized these items?

What I’m saying is quite simple: flax, barley, and close relatives of Triticum are native to the Americas (not necessarily upstate NY).

 

[Javl]

Reading these posts and the BoM brings to mind the lost city of Atlantis. This is another fantasy of a “lost” civilization. I wonder which fairy tale came first, Atlantis or the BoM?

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem

 

[dianaiad]

I could make a fortune on a Mormon to Christian Dicitionary.

Sure would make it alot easier to understand each other.

Really?

OF course, first you have to get all the “Christians” to sign onto the “Christian” side of the translation.

Since we have, quite literally, thousands of Christian belief systems that deny Christianity to each other, that might be a problem.

 

[lax16]

Campeador,
You asked for honesty. Here you go as to the passage in Galatians:

“Another gospel” would be a gospel that does not see that Peter declared that Christ is the Rock, and that there is no other rock upon which the gospel is based.

Well, many Protestant Christian scholars have now come to agree that Peter is the Rock after years of questioning the meaning of Petros and petra. I strongly suggest reading the research on this subject from the Christian Monthly Standard under Peter, The Rock, and The Confession at christianmonthlystandard.com/

Donald A. Hagner/Fuller Theological Seminary says:
"The natural reading of the passage…is that it is Peter who is the rock upon which the church is to be built…The frequent attempts that have been made, largely in the past, to deny this favor of the view that the confession itself is the rock…seem to be largely motivated by Protestant prejudice against a passage that is used by the Roman Catholics to justify the papacy.

David Hill
Presbyterian minister and Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Biblical Studies says:
"On this rock I will build my church: the word-play goes back to Aramaic tradition. It is on Peter himself, the confessor of his Messiahship, that Jesus will build the Church…Attempts to interpret the “rock” as something other than Peter in person are due to Protestant bias…

“Another gospel” would be a gospel that does not see that Christ fulfilled the prophecy by Isaiah (22:22-23) that the key of David would be upon Christ’s shoulder as He opens the doors of hell through His suffering of the atonement and His offer of grace and redemption.

Even your prophet has said that the Mormon Jesus is not the same Jesus that the Christians follow.

“Another gospel” would replace the free will and choice of individuals to make personal covenants with the supposed free will and choice of parents (acting out of constraint due to misunderstanding the Bible) making the choice of being “born again” for an infant instead of waiting to allow the infant to grow into a person who can make their own personal choice and thus enter into a true covenant relationship.

Do you think a seven year old is free from parental pressure to make a personal choice that is a covenant relationship? I can see if you were arguing adult baptism, but infants vs 7year olds?

As to the battlefield and bodily remains, are you saying that every battlefield place in the world that has ever been in all of time can be identified through bodily remains, and that the evidence is merely sitting there for all to see?

Can you say that you know of any great civilizations that didn’t leave behind remains? Why would it have to be bodily remains as opposed to weaponry, pottery (they did eat and drink), etc

 

[RebeccaJ]

Or since they were Jewish, how about a Torah?

 

[lax16]

What I’m saying is quite simple: flax, barley, and close relatives of Triticum are native to the Americas (not necessarily upstate NY).

Please define “the Americas” and explain how flax, barley, and grasses would be relevant to the peoples living within walking distance of upstate New York.

 

[lax16]

Or since they were Jewish, how about a Torah?

Or at least some Jewish customs or burial practices!!! Maybe a temple for worship…

 

[Returning_Home]

Reading these posts and the BoM brings to mind the lost city of Atlantis. This is another fantasy of a “lost” civilization. I wonder which fairy tale came first, Atlantis or the BoM?

Just because Atlantis was described by Plato and was said to be the birthplace of the fictional Aryans of Nazi mythology doesn’t make it any more real than any place in the BOM; it’s just been in the public consciousness longer. In fact, it’s probably slightly more plausible than Zarahemla or Bountiful.

 

[dianaiad]

Can you say that you know of any great civilizations that didn’t leave behind remains? Why would it have to be bodily remains as opposed to weaponry, pottery (they did eat and drink), etc

Now that’s a question that made me go…say, what?

If they didn’t leave remains behind, how would we know they were ‘great civilizations?" In actuality, we do have several civilizations, the remains of which are very slim and mysterious. We have no way of knowing how "great’ they were. Some of those 'remains" are simply mentions in the records of other civilizations. Those settlements that are hidden beneith the Black Sea, for instance…or the Clovis people…or the Anasazi…

 

[Ahimsa]

Please define “the Americas” and explain how flax, barley, and grasses would be relevant to the peoples living within walking distance of upstate New York.

Americas includes the two American continents. Upstate NY isn’t the only possible location of events related to the BoM.

 

[lax16]

Americas includes the two American continents. Upstate NY isn’t the only possible location of events related to the BoM.

This thread is about the Hill Cumorah. The LDS church has definitive teachings that state that the battles took place at the Hill Cumorah which is in upstate New York and that the America referred to in the BoM is the one Columbus was divinely led to find. (The Ensign - 1975 - America’s Destiny)

If someone is trying to re-write church teachings on this matter, frankly, I am not interested. Trying to bring South America in now to take a little heat off, eh?

 

[lax16]

Now that’s a question that made me go…say, what?

If they didn’t leave remains behind, how would we know they were ‘great civilizations?" In actuality, we do have several civilizations, the remains of which are very slim and mysterious. We have no way of knowing how "great’ they were. Some of those 'remains" are simply mentions in the records of other civilizations. Those settlements that are hidden beneith the Black Sea, for instance…or the Clovis people…or the Anasazi…

Ah ha - you are paying attention! (as always, the great proofreader - although I didn’t make a mistake it was a “trick” question!)

Think about it - we are doing this backwards! Usually, someone finds a thing or two and it ties in with something here or there…but in this case, we have a record of a people that lived long ago given to a guy in NY in the 1800’s and nothing else to back it up.

Slim remains are good…and mysterious works too. Mentioned in records of other civilizations is really good because that is cross-referencing…

But we know the BoM civilizations were great so there should be something around to prove it! I mean, this was a big battle!