How come archeologists cannot find a trace of..?

[mfbukowski]

The beginnings of the Mesoamerican civilizations are:

Aztec ----1195AD
Olmec----1200BC
Mayan----1000BC
Inca-------- 12AD

The timeline for these civilizations simply do not reflect the Mormon belief that these people were a result of the supposed Jewish emigration. One Mormon on this thread said the the Olmec were desendants of the Jews. This could not possibly be true as the Olmec started before the Jews arrived.

Jaredites left around 1200 BC. You really should learn something before you post this stuff.

 

[ricko]

Jaredites left around 1200 BC. You really should learn something before you post this stuff.

It’s better than the auguments you have presented by a long shot.

So the Jaredites left around 1200BC and upon arriving became the Olmec? But that is not mentioned in “the most correct book ever written” on golden plates, translated by a seer stone and a dubious character with holograpic images that disappeared when the translation was correct and still needed 4,000 corrections.

 

[SedesDomi]

Interesting essay addressing the genetics of Jews and Native Americans, vis-a-vis The Book of Mormon and its reliability.

So, if we want to hear the sound of two hands clapping not just one, to compare modern native American DNA with modern Jewish DNA, we have to consider what we’re comparing with what. Should modern Lamanite DNA look Jewish?

Maybe a more reasonable question would be, Why would it?

Some will say that the whole Book of Mormon is about the Nephites, who are Israelites lost from their parent nation! But, Israel is a cultural, religious body, not usually a monogenetic body. Consider the original 12 tribes of Israel even: fathered by 12 brothers – the sons of mothers from three different families; but the 12 mens’ wives? Gathered from all over, including Egypt.

The Jews were one specific tribe among the 12 or 13 in Israel (not the Lehite colony’s tribe); after the Lehites departed, they were marched off to Babylon for a couple of generations, returned, mixed a bit with other nations which had been imported by Nebuchanezzer, lived in the land of Israel (again a trading hub) until the first century AD; were exiled by the Romans, scattered all over the face of the earth, and so lived for 1900 years.

Comparing these two, a few samples anyway, no clear match found yet. No real surprise here, but it certainly doesn’t BEGIN to disprove what the Book of Mormon really says.

 

[Jerusha]

Jaredites left around 1200 BC. You really should learn something before you post this stuff.

Without outside validation, how can you state this for sure.

Exactly how far could they get in boats described like this:

And the Lord said, Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water;
2:17 and they were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight; even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish.
…
2:20 And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared, Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top thereof, and also in the bottom thereof; and when thou shalt suffer for air, thou shalt unstop the hole thereof, and receive air. And if it so be that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole thereof, that ye may not perish in the flood.

 

[PaulDupre]

Okay, stop, time out! Let’s rewind:

PaulDupre says, “Funny that they only changed this belief after the DNA evidence came forth…”

Then I say, “And how the Catholic Pope makes some statements about evolution only after the evolution evidence came forth.”

Then you say, “And how the Catholic Pope makes some statements about automobiles only after the invention of the automobile came forth. What is the evidence for the Book of Mormon being true?”

The point here is that the pope’s statements about evolution are only about evolution. He didn’t respond to new information about evolution by changing ancient Catholic teaching. In fact, he used the opportunity to restate and support the ancient Catholic teaching that our souls are created by God at conception, and that our souls do not derive from other, preexisting, sources.

The LDS, on the other hand, responded to recent DNA evidence showing that the Amerindians are not descended from Hebrews by completely reinterpreting the BoM and throwing out 160 years of prophetic teaching (about who the Lamanites are) from Joseph Smith to Ezra Taft Benson.

That’s the difference.

 

[PaulDupre]

Please show me where it does not. It is not mentioned either way.

The point is that it makes no sense that such an important part of their lives would get no mention whatsoever. It just doesn’t ring true.

 

[PaulDupre]

Jaredites left around 1200 BC. You really should learn something before you post this stuff.

All the Jaredites were wiped out (see Ether chapter 15).

 

[SedesDomi]

All the Jaredites were wiped out (see Ether chapter 15).

Not necessarily.

All we know about the Jaredites comes to us from the record left by the Nephites, their successors.

Some will object that according to the Book of Ether, all the Jaredites were killed but two (Ether 15), but this is the understanding of the author of the Book of Ether, who could not have known everything that happened on the entire continent. [Webmaster’s note: There is no reason why many others could not have fled, and we later find many Jaredite names still cropping up in later Book of Mormon times, showing that Jaredite influence survived.]

The Nephite records say specifically that between the time of Nephi and the time of Mosiah, individuals entered the Nephite community from outside, such as Sherem (Jacob 7) and Korihor (Alma 30). Where they came from we are not told, but their names are Jaredite names (Ether 7:3 and Ether 13:17, long before any finding of plates from the Jaredites, a possible source of Jaredite names among the Nephites.

The Book of Mormon has a long stretch where it’s just a sketch – the early Nephite period, with all those little books detailing little but the handoff of the plates, but there are Jaredite names there, such as Jarom, Amaron, Chemish, Zeniff.

 

[PaulDupre]

Some will object that according to the Book of Ether, all the Jaredites were killed but two…

Where did he get two? Ether 15 says that only Coriantumr survived. Then later in his life he spent a few months with the Nephites (see Omni 1:21). No other Jaredites are ever mentioned. You can speculate about Jaredite names all you want, but there is nothing in the BoM about other Jaredites.

And BTW, it is obvious that Sherem was a Lamanite or perhaps a disaffected Nephite. Sherem was “learned, that he had a perfect knowledge” of the Nephite language (Hebrew) (see Jacob chapter 7). The Hebrew language did not exist when the Jaredites allegedly sailed to the Americas. Where would Sherem have been perfectly schooled in Hebrew if he were a Jaredite?

 

[SedesDomi]

Sherem was “learned, that he had a perfect knowledge” of the Nephite language (Hebrew) (see Jacob chapter 7). The Hebrew language did not exist when the Jaredites allegedly sailed to the Americas. Where would Sherem have been perfectly schooled in Hebrew if he were a Jaredite?

Perhaps Sherem learned Hebrew from the Nephites?

 

[PaulDupre]

Perhaps Sherem learned Hebrew from the Nephites?

The BoM is clear that until Sherem “came among the Nephites” in Jacob 7, they had never met him nor heard of him. He took them quite by surprise with his anti-Christian teaching. He could not have been so well schooled by the Nephites without being known to them.

 

[SedesDomi]

The BoM is clear that until Sherem “came among the Nephites” in Jacob 7, they had never met him nor heard of him. He took them quite by surprise with his anti-Christian teaching. He could not have been so well schooled by the Nephites without being known to them.

Perhaps Sherem learned Hebrew from the Lamanites?

 

[PaulDupre]

Perhaps Sherem learned Hebrew from the Lamanites?

Exactly. I think it is pretty obvious that the BoM author(s) meant Sherem was a Lamanite, not a Jaredite (since there were no Jaredites by then).

 

[mfbukowski]

All the Jaredites were wiped out (see Ether chapter 15).

Yah, and so were the Olmecs. Funny how that happens, huh? Oh and incidentally, if you are wiped out, you don’t leave a whole lot of DNA do you?

 

[Jerusha]

The Olmecs weren’t wiped out. They made great cultural contributions to meso-America. They blended with the existing population. Their language was very much like Mende, a West african language. DNA cannot determine if African DNA contributions in that area are recent or Olmec.

Spalding wrote the core text for the BOM as a parody of the Jewish Origins theory and religious fundamentalism. See the Landover Baptist thread. And some people still bought it.

With the departure of Hagoth and his people, the “Nephite” population was greatly weakend, and soon fell. He finished that story up with a takeoff on Ohio river pirates (many of whom, ironically, later joined the Mormons) Then he finished the story based on the Vikings in Ether

Makes sense to me. Much more sense than your “reality”

 

[mfbukowski]

The Olmecs weren’t wiped out. They made great cultural contributions to meso-America. They blended with the existing population. Their language was very much like Mende, a West african language. DNA cannot determine if African DNA contributions in that area are recent or Olmec.

Spalding wrote the core text for the BOM as a parody of the Jewish Origins theory and religious fundamentalism. See the Landover Baptist thread. And some people still bought it.

With the departure of Hagoth and his people, the “Nephite” population was greatly weakend, and soon fell. He finished that story up with a takeoff on Ohio river pirates (many of whom, ironically, later joined the Mormons) Then he finished the story based on the Vikings in Ether

Makes sense to me. Much more sense than your “reality”

So Spaulding was a prophet and Catholics should learn about the BOM? You know what I mean

 

[Jerusha]

If a prophet is defined as an honest historian who uses the principle that history repeats itself to criticize society as he sees it, then yes, Spalding was a prophet. I think the man had a very acute mind, and an immense capacity for sarcasm irony satire and whatever have you of the wiser aspects of humor.

I have no fear in answering that question.

Only Catholics who are curious about the BOM and want to have an understanding of it without wading through the thees and thous and wilts and exceedinglys and convoluted sentences. Maybe Catholics who are afraid of it because of the superstitious aura that Mormons have surrounded it with.

If Liberal Mormons want to see Spalding as thier prophet, I have no problem with that. Much better than any of them, although BH Roberts came close. I got a little white teddy bear I call “BH”

 

[PaulDupre]

Yah, and so were the Olmecs. Funny how that happens, huh? Oh and incidentally, if you are wiped out, you don’t leave a whole lot of DNA do you?

Wait a minute! Now you’re not saying the Olmecs were descended from the Jaredites, you’re saying the Olmecs were the Jaredites? Oh, my.

 

[mfbukowski]

Wait a minute! Now you’re not saying the Olmecs were descended from the Jaredites, you’re saying the Olmecs were the Jaredites? Oh, my.

You really have a problem with this don’t you? Were the people on the Mayflower Americans? What about your great grandparents, assuming they were born here? Exactly how many generations in the future will it be before we are no longer Americans? Are Mexicans Americans? Canadians? Are South Americans, Americans? We all live in the “Americas” don’t we? Defining nationalities is not an easy thing, especially when we call them by different names in different languages. And you don’t understand that? Oh, my.

 

[mfbukowski]

If a prophet is defined as an honest historian who uses the principle that history repeats itself to criticize society as he sees it, then yes, Spalding was a prophet. I think the man had a very acute mind, and an immense capacity for sarcasm irony satire and whatever have you of the wiser aspects of humor.

I have no fear in answering that question.

Only Catholics who are curious about the BOM and want to have an understanding of it without wading through the thees and thous and wilts and exceedinglys and convoluted sentences. Maybe Catholics who are afraid of it because of the superstitious aura that Mormons have surrounded it with.

If Liberal Mormons want to see Spalding as thier prophet, I have no problem with that. Much better than any of them, although BH Roberts came close. I got a little white teddy bear I call “BH”

Dang. I guess that makes me a prophet.

On the Olmecs, I don’t know where you get this stuff. CFR

Mende? Huge CFR. Just look even at wikipedia. No evidence you are right about that Mende thing.