Cumorah

[Returning_Home]

Scipio,
I suppose you’ll want to go ahead and specify the quotes you are talking about, from the current apostles. (The “whiteness” of someone does not have to do with their DNA.)

Ah, you’re always good for a laugh. Your self-delusion runs very deep and I pray that you get help. That the Lamanites being a ‘filthy, dark and loathesome’ people refers to skin color without question because in the topic comes up again and again: 2 Nephi chapter 5 heading, 2 Nephi 5:21, Alma 3:6, and 3 Nephi 2:14-16. There’s no doubt that the author, Joseph Smith, clearly meant skin color.

BYU is a scholastic institution. Since archeology is a scholastic pursuit, students there have just as much right as anyone else to explore archeology, if they are so inclined.

And they are not so inclined to do so by the church’s admonition and certainly not with church funds.

 

[Returning_Home]

What you don’t seem to understand is that when Mormon looked at the outcome of the battles, he was on the hill looking out over the landscape and seeing the results down below him. In other words, those battles could have been anywhere within his scope of vision from standing on the hill. The LDS church doesn’t own the properties surrounding the Hill Cumorah–it’s private farmland.

Perhaps a picture will help:

scriptures.lds.org/en/chphotos/2

Thank you for that link. It also proves that the Hill Cumorah is exactly where we said it is all along: New York.

The picture, however, doesn’t show the visitor’s center at the bottom, the statue of Moroni at the top or the enormous letters C-U-M-O-R-A-H on the side.

And while the picture isn’t great, I’m not seeing any farmland anywhere in the picture. I’m guessing the church owns the entire site.
And what you don’t understand is that Mormon is a fictional character, that is, someone who never existed.

 

[ParkerD]

To any reader still following this thread, here is the Book of Mormon description about the view from the top of the hill Cumorah after the battle that had occurred the day before:

Mormon 6:10 And it came to pass that my men were hewn down, yea, even my ten thousand who were with me, and I fell wounded in the midst; and they passed by me that they did not put an end to my life.
11 And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me.
12 And we also beheld the ten thousand of my people who were led by my son Moroni.
13 And behold, the ten thousand of Gidgiddonah had fallen, and he also in the midst.
14 And Lamah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Gilgal had fallen with his ten thousand; and Limhah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Jeneum had fallen with his ten thousand; and Cumenihah, and Moronihah, and Antionum, and Shiblom, and Shem, and Josh, had fallen with their ten thousand each.

Mormon and Moroni were looking out over the “battlefield” from the top of the hill Cumorah. Twenty-three armies of ten-thousand each had been “hewn down”, which would mean they were able to see the bodies from the battles which were in twenty-three separate locations and those locations could be seen from the top of the hill after all the battles were over.

 

[Returning_Home]

Mormon 6:10 And it came to pass that my men were hewn down, yea, even my ten thousand who were with me, and I fell wounded in the midst; and they passed by me that they did not put an end to my life.
11 And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me.
12 And we also beheld the ten thousand of my people who were led by my son Moroni.
13 And behold, the ten thousand of Gidgiddonah had fallen, and he also in the midst.
14 And Lamah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Gilgal had fallen with his ten thousand; and Limhah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Jeneum had fallen with his ten thousand; and Cumenihah, and Moronihah, and Antionum, and Shiblom, and Shem, and Josh, had fallen with their ten thousand each.

Mormon and Moroni were looking out over the “battlefield” from the top of the hill Cumorah. The “battlefield” was comprised of twenty-three armies of ten-thousand each, which would mean they were in twenty-three separate locations which could be seen from the top of the hill.

So, if my math is correct, that’s 130,000 people who died at the base of Hill Cumorah, all without leaving a trace.

What also doesn’t make sense here is that if there’s a massive hill and the battle is below, any good general is going to want that hill because it’s strategically imperitive to winning the battle. The opposing army will then expend energy, supplies, and manpower trying to scale the grade and is likely to lose to a much smaller defending force, yet there’s no indication of that either; it appears that all of the action occurred at the bottom, which also makes no sense.

 

[SirThomasMore]

So, if my math is correct, that’s 130,000 people who died at the base of Hill Cumorah, all without leaving a trace.

What also doesn’t make sense here is that if there’s a massive hill and the battle is below, any good general is going to want that hill because it’s strategically imperitive to winning the battle. The opposing army will then expend energy, supplies, and manpower trying to scale the grade and is likely to lose to a much smaller defending force, yet there’s no indication of that either; it appears that all of the action occurred at the bottom, which also makes no sense.

LDS Prophets have declared that hundreds of thousands died there

 

[lax16]

Mormon and Moroni were looking out over the “battlefield” from the top of the hill Cumorah. Twenty-three armies of ten-thousand each had been “hewn down”, which would mean they were able to see the bodies from the battles which were in twenty-three separate locations and those locations could be seen from the top of the hill after all the battles were over.

Parker - If Mormon and Moroni could look out over the battlefield from the top of the Hill Cumorah and see thousands of dead men, then it should be fairly simple to deduct how far the naked eye could see from on top of that hill. That would be very helpful in determining the location of the bodies.

The scripture also states that they camped nearby. There should be proof of that as well.

Aerial pictures etc would be a great help too.

 

[lax16]

Perhaps they don’t see how archaeology is a salvation-issue. Archaeology might be a very interesting endeavour, but it is not necessary for salvation.

MormonHero - If it would bring many believers to salvation through Mormonism, than wouldn’t that be important? It would help some to know if the BoM was true, those who need more than a burning in the bosom.
Let’s face it, some people are more skeptical than others, but God’s message is for them too!

“We invite all men everywhere to read the Book of Mormon, to ponder in their hearts the message it contains, and then to ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ **if the ****book is true. ** Those who pursue this course and ask in faith will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Intro to the Book of Mormon)

 

[lax16]

Which Indian tribes are mentioned in the BoM?

MormonHero - From the Introduction in the Book of Mormon:

“The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet historian named Mormon. The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.”

 

[ParkerD]

Parker - If Mormon and Moroni could look out over the battlefield from the top of the Hill Cumorah and see thousands of dead men, then it should be fairly simple to deduct how far the naked eye could see from on top of that hill. That would be very helpful in determining the location of the bodies.

The scripture also states that they camped nearby. There should be proof of that as well.

Aerial pictures etc would be a great help too.

Lax16,
I do some amount of hiking (did a lot more as a youth). When I’m on the brow of a hill overlooking our valley, I can see ten miles into the distance. To see that there were no longer groups of people standing around, I would think one could see perhaps two miles away and have enough vision capability to see whether people as a group were standing.

So you have a circle of 12 square miles, which is over 25 million square feet of area that could be the potential places where the groups of 10,000 each battled. The odds of digging one hole and finding anything, even if every combatant were for sure to have left something that does not weather over time, would be less than 2%. So an archeologist would need to dig 50 holes to have a reasonable chance of finding evidence if the assumption is that every combatant left something on the ground that wasn’t taken by the conquering army or by later scavengers (which is not a valid assumption given the descriptions in the Book of Mormon about the surviving population group).

 

[Returning_Home]

LDS Prophets have declared that hundreds of thousands died there

It’s actually more than that because in Ether 15:2, it clearly states that there were ‘two millions’ (a mistake Joseph Smith later made in his own work showing that this wasn’t translated as much as it was made up) of Jaredites who met their end at the Hill Cumorah. And then we have the poor, hapless Nephites, numbering some 240,000 to 250,000 who didn’t bother to read the history of the people who came before them going to the same place and meeting the same end at the hands of the same enemy.

Normally, I use 2.5 million as a fair number.

 

[lax16]

from Ohio State University - Archaeology Education
isthmia.osu.edu/arched/excavation.html

**Locating Sites **

**The visible remains of the ancient past do not normally lie exposed on hilltops or in the **open desert. The Parthenon in Athens and the Egyptian pyramids are the exceptions and not the norm (Figure 8.1). **More commonly, archaeological sites are **buried beneath the surface and may be partially or totally invisible to the eye. How then do archaeologists even locate sites given such a situation? In the olden days of classical archaeology, explorers used ancient literary references to place names as guides in locating lost cities. For example, Heinrich Schliemann relied on literary references from Homer, his own hunches, and a little luck to find the ancient cities of Troy and Mycenae. In addition, many ancient places (for example, Athens, Mycenae, Sparta) have kept their ancient names unto the present, making it clear where - in a general sense - the ancient places were.

Apart from this traditional method, however, **archaeologists today use a variety of heuristic **tools in locating sites. **Systematic surface survey **(discussed in the next section) **reveals the variety of materials present across a region, provides **information about what activities may have taken place there over time, and suggests the different cultural components represented. Artifact scatter patterns reflect the location of subsurface structures and are used to guide archaeological excavation. **When structures are wholly invisible on the surface, researchers can employ ****the recent advances in archaeological technique to locate sites. ****Remote ****sensing, which includes aerial photography and satellite imagery of an area, may accentuate subtle differences in landscape that are outside the spectrum of visible light, thereby suggesting subsurface buildings and features **(Figure 8.2). A dark soil stain on an aerial photograph may indicate the rich organic material of an ancient trash midden. Because the state of vegetation depends on soil fertility, abnormal crop marks may suggest underground walls, ditches, and roads. Slight nuances in shadow may point to elevation differences and ancient structures. Computers are now used to detect these subtle differences. Archaeologists can examine the pixel shapes and forms of known structures (e.g., temples) on digitized photographs and try to relate these to similar spectral emissions on the photograph of the survey area. Other projects have utilized **geophysical prospecting devices **to reveal more about the use of the area. A team may use **resistivity meters to discover the soil’s resistance to electrical current **and **magnetometers to detect variation in the magnetic properties **of the soil. These tools reveal subsurface soil anomalies which often represent ancient features such as walls and trash middens. **Techniques are now so sophisticated that if the buried ****structure is well preserved, a team might be able to create a reliable plan of the invisible **feature. If an excavation phase follows, this will certainly help guide the placement of test trenches and excavation grid.

These advances, along with continual chance discoveries through modern construction, ensure that there is never a shortage of researchable sites and little need to “go looking” for cities, treasures, and pretty things. Additionally, **modern archaeologists seldom excavate sites to find what is there. **More often than not, the research questions and objectives guide the choice of what and where to excavate.

Parker - I am re-posting this since it deals with modern archaeological advances and how they would be able to solve the problem with “not knowing where to dig” etc.

 

[Javl]

Lax16,
I do some amount of hiking (did a lot more as a youth). When I’m on the brow of a hill overlooking our valley, I can see ten miles into the distance. To see that there were no longer groups of people standing around, I would think one could see perhaps two miles away and have enough vision capability to see whether people as a group were standing.

So you have a circle of 12 square miles, which is over 25 million square feet of area that could be the potential places where the groups of 10,000 each battled. The odds of digging one hole and finding anything, even if every combatant were for sure to have left something that does not weather over time, would be less than 2%. So an archeologist would need to dig 50 holes to have a reasonable chance of finding evidence if the assumption is that every combatant left something on the ground that wasn’t taken by the conquering army or by later scavengers (which is not a valid assumption given the descriptions in the Book of Mormon about the surviving population group).

Not so, Parker. First off, the amount of combatants killed, according to the BoM would make the chance of finding remnants, ( bones, etc.) greater than 2%. It would be of the order closer to 10%. Secondly, if archaeologists of today can locate historic sites with less than a 2% chance of discovery, I don’t see why an LDS archaeologist would have such trouble if he/she is earnestly searching for remnants or relics. ( An example of such a discovery is the Greek-Persian battle at Thermopylae )

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem

.

 

[SirThomasMore]

IF the Book of Mormon is true, remants of those battles WOULD be found with excavation.

and if it is false, then excavation would reveal nothing.

Faced with that, the LDS Church decided to put on a pageant

 

[StevieD]

Lax16,
So you have a circle of 12 square miles, which is over 25 million square feet of area that could be the potential places where the groups of 10,000 each battled. The odds of digging one hole and finding anything, even if every combatant were for sure to have left something that does not weather over time, would be less than 2%. So an archeologist would need to dig 50 holes to have a reasonable chance of finding evidence if the assumption is that every combatant left something on the ground that wasn’t taken by the conquering army or by later scavengers (which is not a valid assumption given the descriptions in the Book of Mormon about the surviving population group).

Parker, the museums of Europe are packed with items from Roman times and before that were discovered accidentally when land was developed or when it came into agricultural use. Metal detector users have also uncovered millions of individual items in random searches. Probability dictates that, if physical items are there, someone would have found them either by accident or design and that one find would lead to others nearby and so on leading to millions of individual bones, coins, weapons etc apart from accommodation and centres of worship.
In the case of the BoM civilisations, nothing has been found and nothing ever will be found for the sole reason that the things reported in the BoM never happened. Just accept it and move on as many others have.

 

[Returning_Home]

IF the Book of Mormon is true, remants of those battles WOULD be found with excavation.

and if it is false, then excavation would reveal nothing.

Faced with that, the LDS Church decided to put on a pageant

Choose The Right, I guess.

 

[Returning_Home]

Parker, the museums of Europe are packed with items from Roman times and before that were discovered accidentally when land was developed or when it came into agricultural use. Metal detector users have also uncovered millions of individual items in random searches. Probability dictates that, if physical items are there, someone would have found them either by accident or design and that one find would lead to others nearby and so on leading to millions of individual bones, coins, weapons etc apart from accommodation and centres of worship.

This happens regularly in Jerusalem, forgotten sites in the Holy Land are discovered when clearing land, putting up a parking lot, or even a Starbuck’s.

 

[SirThomasMore]

exactly…that is why I laugh when Mormons claim that all their big cities and millions of people vanished like mist…with no trace at all…

 

[lax16]

Lax16,
Evidently you haven’t paid much attention to 1 Corinthians 2 which the LDS apostles often quote. Why in the world you would think they would want people to join the LDS church with a person’s “evidence” for joining based on either DNA or archeology, when Paul says the “wisdom of men” is contrary to gaining revealed knowledge, is beyond me other than your unfamiliarity with the either 1 Corinthians 2 or with what it teaches about the essence of revealed knowledge.

What you seem to fail to understand about the buildings being built near the LDS Salt Lake Temple is that those buildings will be (and are) “self-sustaining” as an investment, meaning the resources used to build them were funded by capital investment funds generated from prior investments (not from LDS members tithing), and those buildings are an investment for a future revenue stream, with projections for that revenue stream that were studied in detail before the decisions were made relating to making such an investment. (This is how a good growing economy works–businesses become willing to invest when they project a revenue stream from their investment. A robust economy thrives in that kind of environment. A stagnant economy happens when businesses pull their resources because they see no long-term benefit from investing.)

If “new members” came into the LDS church from archeological “proof” or from DNA “proof”, they might last six months to a year in the church, and would fall away when they found out that they had joined an organization that has none of the bells and whistles of physical evidence to keep going back to, but instead expects a person to “build their house of testimony and faith” on revealed knowledge and a personal, intimate, ongoing relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Parker - I am aware of the buildings downtown SLC across from Temple Square and how they might generate revenue… The point is, the LDS church has a great deal of money and could easily finance a dig. Actually, I am sure that they would get many volunteers from BYU or they could send the missionaries there to help…

You know, I don’t think it is up to us to decide who is a worthy convert or not or who will remain faithful. I do not believe for one minute that God knocks people out of the game without giving them a chance at bat.

Bells and whistles? The Mormons are the epitome of bells and whistles!! Yellow ribbons, missionary welcomes, temple weddings, sealings, temple ordinances, seminary, pioneer day (bigger than the 4th of July!), hand-cart treks, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Temple Square, temples everywhere you look in Utah with lights and gardens, Eagle Scout badges, TV stations, BYU…Mormons love good publicity!

 

[SirThomasMore]

See? Parker is STILL doiung the red herring. He is trying to mix historical evidence with faith-based evidence. Since he KNOWS that the CoLDS cannot produce one iota of historical or archelogical evidence, he covers it up by trying to inject faith-based evidence. When Parker does this, it is a tacit admission that the Book of Mormon is false and has no evidence

 

[MJE]

With all the evidence, from this thread & others, exposing the Mormon god (s) as weak and inconsistent, are there any members who have given their lives willingly for the Mormon faith as St Thomas More or St Maximillian Kolbe or Edith Stein (St Teresia Benedicta)have for the Catholic faith? & they just featured a program on EWTN re: the martyrs of Ukraine during the Communist regime; they died or suffered in the gulag rather then deny their faith.