External views on BoM and BoA

From http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30745

Came across an interesting thread on the exMo subreddit today. A young (17 years old) exMo who posts as 'cagelessbird' (real name Zachary) sent letters to sixty different professors asking them to weigh in on the Book of Mormon or Book of Abraham. (His Book of Mormon letter is here; his Book of Abraham letter is here.) Of the sixty he wrote, twenty-five responded. Of those twenty-five, fourteen permitted cagelessbird to release their names and responses.

I reproduce them here for your consideration (first eleven are on Book of Mormon; last three are Book of Abraham):



Richard Blanton- Professor of Anthropology at Purdue University, PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan

Zachary—I'm not familiar with the book of Mormon in detail, but from what you indicated about its contents it is totally made up (there is absolutely no evidence for any of this) not to mention implicitly racist because it seems to imply that Native Americans lacked the ability to build civilization without help from "Lamanites."
With Regards, Rich Blanton


Louise Burkhart- Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University at Albany, PhD in Anthropology from Yale University

Dear Zachary,

It is true that I am a busy woman, but I can answer your question. Since you have already reached your own conclusions and left the Church, I don't feel that I am belittling your religion if I say that all historical and archaeological evidence contradicts the Book of Mormon's stories of the peopling of the Americas and the early history of Native American societies. The Book of Mormon is a work of faith, and naturally has credibility to the faithful, but it has no historical basis, any more than the Book of Genesis is a historically or scientifically accurate version of the origin of the earth and human beings, however much it, or the Book of Mormon, may serve as a moral guide to believers. And I'm sure you can understand why people might be uncomfortable directly contradicting the teachings of what has become a very well established religious movement.

The Americas were peopled by immigrants from Asia probably 15,000 years ago (give or take some thousands; archaeologists still haven't quite figured this out). This is born out by archaeology as well as genetic evidence (DNA, blood types, and other factors). Their descendants settled throughout the entire New World. Complex, urban civilizations developed in Mexico and Central America in isolation from the rest of the world, out of the accumulated knowledge of people who lived there for thousands of years, domesticated corn and other food crops, and learned very well how to live in those environments. Languages of the New World bear no relationship to Hebrew. Ever since Europeans became aware of Native Americans, there have been various attempts to identify them with the so-called "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" mentioned in the Old Testament. So we might say that Joseph Smith's version was in some degree a variation on this old theme.

Hang on to that inquisitive mind of yours. The archaeology and history of the Americas are fascinating. I hope you will have the opportunity to pursue further studies, in college or on your own.

Best regards,

Louise M. Burkhart
Professor of Anthropology
University at Albany, SUNY


David Carrasco- Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard Divinity School, PhD in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago

Dear Zachary

I see you are deeply interested in the history of Mexico as it relates to the Book of Mormon. I respect the Mormon religion and have been to Salt Lake City to see the Mormon monuments and displays.

The Book of Mormon is a book of faith and storytelling and not history. Historically it is inaccurate. If we go on archaeological evidence, there is no basis for what the Book of Mormon teaches, as you summarize it below. There is no record of the arrival of anyone from Jerusalem. Here's another point. People of faith believe what they want to believe about the authenticity of their own religion. Some Catholics believed that St. Tomas, one of Jesus Christ's disciples migrated to Mexico after the crucifixion and preached in Mexico. This is because they found some parallels between Aztec and Maya religion and the Bible. But there is not one single fact, datum, object, word that supports either the Mormon view or the Catholic view.

My book Religions of Mesoamerica is coming out again in paperback in September and I address these claims in the first chapter.


Oswaldo Chinchilla- Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, PhD in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University

Dear Zachary,

I am not familiar with the Book of Mormon, except in a very superficial way. Therefore, I'm not able to evaluate its contents. However, I always tell my students that the past can be explained in multiple ways, and that there is no point in trying to make compatible diverse explanations that derive from radically different modes of inquiry.

Religious explanations (at least in major modern religions) generally rely on the criterion of authority, basing their interpretations on texts that are held as infallible. The acceptance of such explanations is based on faith and belief. By contrast, scientific explanations are based on logical reasoning and empirical evidence. Explanations are not meant to be accepted, but on the contrary, they are meant to be tested, and there is no established truth that is not amenable to be tested and falsified.

Having said that, I can tell you that I know the work of numerous archaeologists that are members of the Mormon Church, and they have produced important scientific work on ancient Mesoamerica. I cannot tell you whether they consider the results of their work as compatible with the Book of Mormon.

Sincerely,
Oswaldo Chinchilla


Geoffrey Conrad- Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Indiana University, PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University

Dear Mr. [REDACTED],
Thank you for your message. I should begin by saying that while I've written about Mesoamerican archaeology and taught about it for years, it isn't my primary area of specialization. I did most of my own fieldwork in South America and the Caribbean. When I wrote about Mesoamerica, I was collaborating with my colleague Prof. Arthur Demarest (now at Vanderbilt University), whose primary area of expertise is indeed Mesoamerica. When I taught about Mesoamerica, it was always in a course on comparative ancient civilizations. Also, I've never read anything more than snippets of the Book of Mormon and can only discuss the specific claims you've listed below.

After saying all of that, I think I do have enough knowledge to assess the claims you've listed. Insofar as I can tell, they are not supported by any archaeological, linguistic, or genetic evidence. Some specific points of disagreement are:

1) Complex societies ("civilizations," for short) began to emerge in Mesoamerica well before 600 B.C.-- nearly 1,000 years earlier, in fact. All of the archeological evidence indicates that those complex societies were developed by the native peoples of Mesoamerica out of their own longstanding cultural traditions.

2) The native peoples of Mesoamerica are American Indians. All archaeological and genetic evidence indicates that their ancestors came from northeast Asia (Siberia) and entered what is today the Americas sometime before 13,000 years ago.

3) There were probably several thousand native languages spoken in the Americas when Columbus arrived. They belonged to a number of language families, but none of the ones we know anything about belonged to the Semitic language family, which includes Hebrew. None of the known native languages of the Americas show any evidence of being derived from Hebrew.

4) With the single exception of Norse settlement in what is today Newfoundland, there is no evidence of any people from Europe or Southwest Asia in the Americas before Columbus. A small number of Norse colonists from Greenland settled in Newfoundland around A.D. 1000. The colony was short-lived, however, and was abandoned within a century.

I hope this information is useful to you. I do have two colleagues in the Department of Anthropology at Indiana University who are specialists in Mesoamerican archaeology. Both are out of the country this summer, but if they were here, I'm certain they wouldn't say anything different from what I've said.

All best wishes,
Geoff Conrad
Geoffrey W. Conrad
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Director Emeritus, Mathers Museum of World Cultures
Indiana University Bloomington


Virginia Garrard-Burnett- Professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, PhD in History from Tulane University

From an academic perspective, the Book of Mormon is an interesting historical artifact that is probably the best example ever of the vivid religious imagination of the American people, and especially of Joseph Smith.
All the best,
VGB


John Henderson- Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University, PhD in Anthropology from Yale University

I haven't seen convincing evidence that a group of Hebrew speakers arrived in Mesoamerica. I see the Book of Mormon claim as one version of the general issue of transoceanic contact. It's really hard to find good evidence of that kind of contact. It's really unlikely that we would find an initial settlement, so the case usually comes down to looking at patterns of similarity between the origin and destination with evidence drawn from big chunks of time. Most archaeologists are hostile to the idea that people arrived from the Old World, so they don't think about the possibility. I'm not opposed to the idea myself, but I just haven't seen evidence that strikes me as tempting. Language is one area that seems to indicate a negative. Mesoamerican languages clump into a couple of large groupings, but those groupings are very different from one another, and none of them seems related to Hebrew; linguists are sure that there wouldn't be nearly enough time between 600 BC and the Spanish invasion to produce that much variation and obscure a Hebrew ancestry. Of course, I haven't seen a lot of the publications of the LDS church (claims of archaeological confirmation of the Book of Mormon don't show up in standard archaeological publications).
Hope this helps.
John Henderson


Arthur Joyce- Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, PhD in Anthropology from Rutgers University

Since I am not very knowledgeable on the claims of the Mormon faith regarding ancient Mesoamerica it is a little difficult to address your overall question. I can say that there is no evidence that I can see for the three assertions that you mention in your note. I don’t see evidence of a major migration of outsiders into Mesoamerica around 600 B.C. Archaeologists are able to trace Native American populations back more than 10,000 years ago. There are no indications of Hebrew roots in Native American languages.

I would also direct your attention to the New World Archaeological Foundation at Brigham Young University. My understanding is that the NWAF has as one of its goals to find evidence of the Book of Mormon in the archaeological record of Mesoamerica. The professional archaeologists employed by the NWAF, however, are fine scholars and well respected in the field of archaeology. I know that some of them are also devout Mormons. Their professional publications in the field of archaeology do not address questions related to the Mormon religion, although my understanding is that some of them have addressed these issues in other venues and that other Mormon writers (non-archaeologists) have used their research to view the Mesoamerican past from the perspective of the Mormon faith.

Best,
Art Joyce


William Saturno- Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences, PhD in Anthropology from Harvard University

Dear Zach,

First let me say that I am neither an expert in modern religion nor a religious person. Nonetheless, all modern religions, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc. present either scientifically inaccurate or historically unverifiable accounts of the past. Practitioners of these religions are asked to accept these discrepancies as a matter of faith, overlooking errors in fact in order to accept the larger messages of the religious narratives as lessons to guide a moral life.

Any attempt to scientifically verify the events of largely religious documents, whether that be Noah's flood or the travels of Lamanites and Nephites is unlikely to produce a result that will appeal to anyone beyond the faithful. That is to say that people will believe what they are most comfortable believing regardless of what scientists illustrate to be the most likely scenario, take global warming as an example.

In direct reference to the existence of evidence of Hebrew speaking/descendant populations in the Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of Columbus, there is none. That is to say that following more than a century of dedicated research, not a single shred of evidence (potsherd, seed, or residue) of old world origin has ever been found. This is the case even though some Mormon scholars themselves have been searching for that evidence.

If you have any further questions, drop me a line[.]


Michael Smith- Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University, PhD in Anthropology from the University of Illinois

You are asking about religious interpretations, not scientific interpretations. From a scientific viewpoint, the Book of Mormon has no standing as an accurate or even a relevant source about ancient Mesoamerican history or archaeology. There is no reason to believe that Joseph Smith knew anything about the Mesoamerican past, or to believe that he heard historical truth from God. So I have no opinion about this.

It is often impossible to “test” historical religious accounts against archaeological evidence. The reason is that many people bring strong pre-dispositions to believe the accounts (or to Not belive them), and this colors their interpretations. Consider the archaeology of the Old Testament. Did David exist? Did he rule an empire, or build a big palace and temple? Have we found evidence for these things? There is endless argument about this, and the situation will probably never be settled.

I assume that you know about the New World Archaeological Foundation. It is funded by the LDS church for carrying out archaeology in Mesoamerica. The archaeology they do is rigorous and very good. Their technical reports say nothing about the Book of Mormon. But at some level in the church, people are probably interpreting the archaeological results with reference to the Book of Mormon.

Dr. Michael E. Smith
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Affiliated Faculty, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
Arizona State University


Brian Stross- Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley

To reply directly to your question that I paraphrase as, "apart from Mormon investigators funded by the church, is there much support to the claim that the Book of Mormon is historically accurate, and if not, then why doesn't it carry credible historical weight."

Correct that there is little if any support to the historicity claim for the Book of Mormon, even including scholarly Mormon investigators, who, like Thomas Lee and John Clark have advanced Mesoamerican archaeology (without, however, advancing support of historical propositions in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon therefore doesn't carry credible historical weight except to persons who take it on faith that it is a sacred book with historical import.

The key is that, as with most religions, faith rather than scientific evidence, is what props up beliefs and information given to and propagated by the faithful.


Peter Brand- Professor of Ancient History and Egyptology, PhD in Ancient Egyptian Language and Literature from the University of Toronto

Hi Zachary,

Its good to hear from you and I'm happy to help you out. Just as background I am an Egyptologist and I am also someone who has a close friend and colleague (a historian) who is Mormon but who does not necessarily believe everything the elders tell him. As it happens I suspect that I know, too, who the "notable PhD's" the members of your church are referring to. I am not an expert on LDS but I do understand that there is a long standing connection with Egyptology based on a papyrus the Church holds. There are two Egyptolologists from Brigham Young University who are also members of the church and who often act to promote and defend the Church's teachings in the academic realm, but with little success in changing minds I suspect.

I am not myself a believer and I am highly skeptical of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. I would also agree with the mainstream Egyptological view that the Joseph Smith Papyrus is simply a Roman era set of Egyptian papyri with various Ancient Egyptian magical texts including sections of a "Book of the Dead" and another known as the "book of breathing". There is no connection between these texts and any aspect of Christianity or Judaism. Outside of Mormon scholars, there is not any recognition of or belief in a "reformed egyptian" script or language. The photos of so called "reformed Egyptian documents that I have seen do not resemble genuine Egyptian scripts of any kind from any period of Egypt's long pharaonic history including both hieroglyphic forms or the more cursive forms known as hieratic and demotic. They look like a modern person's attempt at making cryptogramatic symbols of a modernly invented secret code in that they resemble nonsense "letters" of an alphabet rather than pictorial symbols like hieroglyphs or even the much more varied and differently shaped ligatures of hieratic or demotic Egyptian cursive writing.

There is simply no evidence that the Smith Papyri are anything more than mainstream Egyptologists have identified them as being-- namely typical pharaonic funerary papyri from the last centuries of pagan civilization in Egypt. Despite years of study at BYU, no one has duplicated Smith's "readings" of the papyri as the so-called "book of Abraham" which strongly suggests it is a fictional invention of his imagination. This is not necessarily to say that he didn't believe himself what he told to others. Who knows? People are as capable of deceiving themselves as they are of others.

To my knowledge, there is no archaeological evidence of Nephites or Lamanites, or indeed any other immigrants or settlers in the Americas between the arrival of Asian populations in the prehistoric era until the arrival of European travelers beginning with Columbus. Certainly the Nephites and Lamanites are a figment of Joseph Smith's imagination. There have been other non-religious (specifically non-Mormon) claims of pre-Columbian visitors from the Old World (Europe, the Middle East, Africa) to the Americas via the Atlantic Ocean (As opposed to visits by Asians- specifically Chinese-- to the Americas via the Pacific Ocean). Aside from the original human migrants to the New World 10s of 1000s of years ago probably via a land bridge during the last Ice Age and long before any civilziations arose on earth, it is highly unlikely that there were any early visitations to the Americas. Yet pseudo-scientific claims have been made of Egyptians and other visitors. There is even a popular magazine about it called "Ancient American Magazine" which proposes that there is "archaeological" evidence for Egyptians among others visiting or colonizing North America. I have seen supposed "Egyptian" hieroglyphic inscriptions they claim were found in the US supposedly left by Ancient Egyptians. The ones I have seen resemble modern forgeries of sometimes well-known Egyptian artifacts including ones stored in the British Museum. I bring this up as an independent parallel for the kind of pseudo-scientific belief in a pre-columbian contact between Old World civilizations like Egypt or the Israelites and the Americas. Joseph Smith was not the only one to believe such things although there is no relationship between Mormonism and the beliefs of the editors of "Ancient Americas" magazine. In fact I'm sure they would agree about absolutely nothing.

Ancient Studies often involve a lot of pseudo-scientific, New Age or similar beliefs and claims about the Ancient World which archaeologists and ancient historians reject as modern inventions or misinterpretations. examples would include "pyramid power" some Afrocentric (and New Age) claims about the Egyptians having aircraft, the "Baghdad battery.” But. even if the Babylonians some how "invented" a "battery", they didn't have flashlights or ipods to plug it into!

A good rule of thumb in judging such matters is that "Extraordinary claims should have extraordinary evidence" so, when they haul up the actual body or capture a live plesiosaurus in Loch Ness in Scotland then I will believe in the Lock Ness Monster. I desperately wanted to believe in it when I was 12 but after reading a 300 page book on it from the library with some fuzzy pictures and invented drawings i came to realize that there was no evidence for such a creature.

To non-Mormon's, the story of the gold tablets and the Book of Mormon is often viewed as absurd. Golden tablets and "seeing stones" in a hat sounds like a bad magic trick to be honest and was ruthlessly parodied in an episode of South Park a few years ago.

Sale of antiquities was very common in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Given that -- unless you believe it to be a "miracle" -- how likely is it that someone like Smith who knew nothing about Egyptology per se, would just happen to buy the "right" papyri that happened to have this "lost book" of scripture? It strikes anyone who does not already believe the truth of it, or who wants to believe the truth of it, as being highly unlikely. Of course, people often want to believe the highly improbable and can be easily swayed to believe in fantastic or miraculous claims. This is often how new religions spread. Simply by being old, religions can often become accepted as being "fact" or "true" in part because so many people have believed them for so long. Other Christians who are highly dubious of newer, less traditional sects like LDS, Jehovah's witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists accept tenents of belief that have been around for 2000 years of Christian history that non-Christians are highly dubious, including Muslims and Jews who do not accept the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth or the concept of the Trinity. But after 2000 years, nearly every denomination of Christianity accept these things as dogma just as many Christians and Jews also accept the literal interpretations of fantastic and miraculous events from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). One wonders, however, why there are no Old Testament style miracles and plagues today? Who knows, in 700 years from now, LDS beliefs may be as "Mainstream" or "traditional" as older Christian beliefs although there is obviously universal skepticism about them among all non-Mormon persons, both Christian and non-Christian.

I hope this helps. let me know if you have any further questions.

best wishes

Peter Brand


Salima Ikram- Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, PhD in Egyptology and Museum Studies from the University of Cambridge

See below.
Salima Ikram
Professor of Egyptology
Egyptology Unit Head
American University in Cairo

Here is the most basic summarization of the Book of Mormon:
-In 600 B.C a family from Jerusalem sailed to what is now Central America and began a civilization there. This civilization split up into “Nephites” and “Lamanites” and after centuries of war the Lamanites were the last alive.
-Lamanites are the primary and principle ancestors of Native Americans

No evidence.

-Nephites and Lamanites initially spoke Hebrew when they arrived in Mesoamerica. Over centuries, the linguistics evolved to what some Native Americans speak today.

No evidence.

The Book of Abraham and “Reformed Egyptian”: (This is the area I was hoping you could provide the bulk of information.)
-In 1835 Joseph Smith purchased Egyptian papyri from a traveling mummy exhibit and revealed that they were the writings of the prophet of Abraham. Today, these facsimiles have caused considerable controversy. Many Egyptologists have noted that the facsimiles have no bearing on Joseph Smith’s translations and are instead common Egyptian funerary texts from the first century B.C.

I echo the sentiments Of the Egyptologists.


Peter Der Manuelian, Professor of Egyptology and Director, Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard University. PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago

Dear Zachary,

Thank you for this email. I am one of those who believe, as you wrote, that the "facsimiles have no bearing on Joseph Smith’s translations and are instead common Egyptian funerary texts." I am not personally aware of any professional Egyptologists who feel differently.

With best wishes,

Peter Manuelian

Joseph Smith and Polygamy, well, one aspect of it.

From the Autobiography of Benjamin F. Johnson (1818-1905):

And now to your question, "How early did the Prophet Joseph practice polygamy?" I hardly know how wisely to reply, for the truth at times may be better withheld; but as what I am writing is to be published only under strict scrutiny of the wisest, I will say, that the revelation [D&C 132] to the Church at Nauvoo, July 21, 1843, on the Eternity of the Marriage Covenant and the Law of Plural Marriage, was not the first revelation of the law received and practiced by the Prophet. In 1835, at Kirtland, I learned from my sister's husband, Lyman R. Sherman, who was close to the Prophet, and received it from him, "that the ancient order of Plural Marriage was again to be practiced by the Church." This at the time, did not impress my mind deeply, although there then lived with his family a neighbor's daughter, Fannie Alger, a very nice and comely young woman about my own age, toward whom not only myself, but every one, seemed partial for the amiability of her character; and it was whispered even then that Joseph loved her. After this, there was some trouble with Jared Carter, and through Brother Sherman I learned that "as he had built himself a new house, he now wanted another wife", which Joseph would not permit.

And then there was some trouble with Oliver Cowdery, and whisper said it was relating to a girl then living in his family; and I was afterwards told by Warren Parish, that he himself and Oliver Cowdery did know that Joseph had Fannie Alger as a wife, for they were spied upon and found together. And I can now see that as at Nauvoo, so at Kirtland, that the suspicion or knowledge of the Prophet's plural relation was one of the causes of apostasy and disruption at Kirtland although at the time there was little said publicly on the subject.

Soon after the Prophet's flight in winter of 1837 and 1838, the Alger family left for the West and stopping in Indiana for a time Fannie soon married to one of the citizens there, and although she never left the state, she did not turn from the Church nor from her friendship with the Prophet while she lived...

It was Sunday morning, April 3rd or 4th, 1843, that the Prophet was at my home in Ramus, and after breakfast he proposed a stroll together, and taking his arm, our walk led toward a swail, surrounded by trees and tall brush and near the forest line not far from my house. Through the swail ran a small spring brook, across which a tree was fallen and was clean of its bark. On this we sat down and the Prophet proceeded at once to open to me the subject of plural and eternal marriage and he said that years ago in Kirtland the Lord had revealed to him the ancient order of plural marriage, and the necessity for its practice, and did command him then to take another wife, and that among his first thoughts was to come to my mother for some of her daughters. And as he was again required of the Lord to take more wives, he had come now to ask me for my sister Almira.

My words astonished me and almost took my breath. I sat for a time amazed and finally, almost ready to burst with emotion, I looked him straight in the face and said: "Brother Joseph, this is something I did not expect, and I do not understand it. You know whether it is right, I do not. I want to do just as you tell me, and I will try, but if I ever should know that you do this to dishonor and debauch my sister, I will kill you as sure as the Lord lives." And while his eyes did not move from mine, he said with a smile, in a soft tone: "But Benjamin you will never know that, but you will know the principle in time, and will greatly rejoice in what it will bring to you." "But how," I asked, "Can I teach my sister what I myself do not understand, or show her what I do not myself see?" "But you will see and understand it," he said, "And when you open your mouth to talk to your sister, light will come to you and your mouth will be full and your tongue loose, and I will today preach a sermon to you that none but you will understand." Both of these promises were more than fulfilled. The text of his sermon was our use of the "one, five and ten talents," and as God had now commanded plural marriage, and was exaltation and dominion of the saints depended upon the number of their righteous posterity, from him who was then but with one talent, it would be taken and given him that had ten, which item of doctrine seems now to be somewhat differently constructed.

But my thought and wish is to write of things just as they occurred, and I now bear an earnest testimony that his other prediction was more than fulfilled, for when with great hesitation and stammering I called my sister to a private audience, and stood before her shaking with fear, just so soon as I found power to open my mouth, it was filled, for the light of the Lord shone upon my understanding, and the subject that had seemed so dark now appeared of all subjects pertaining to our gospel the most lucid and plain; and so both my sister and myself were converted together, and never again did I need evidence or argument to sustain that high and holy principle. And within a few days of this period my sister accompanied me to Nauvoo, where at our sister Delcena's, we soon met the Prophet with his brother Hyrum and Wm. Clayton, as his private secretary, who always accompanied him. Brother Hyrum at once took me in hand, apparently in fear I was not fully converted, and this was the manner of his talk to me: "Now Benjamin, you must not be afraid of this new doctrine, for it is all right. You know Brother Hyrum don't get carried away by worldly things, and he fought this principle until the Lord showed him it was true. I know that Joseph was commanded to take more wives, and he waited until an angel with a drawn sword stood before him and declared that if he longer delayed fulfilling that command he would slay him." This was the manner of Brother Hyrum's teaching to me, which I then did not need, as I was fully converted.

Meanwhile, the Prophet, with Louisa Beeman and my sister Delcena, had it agreeable arranged with Sister Almera, and after a little instruction she stood by the Prophet's side and was sealed to him as a wife, by Brother Clayton; after which the Prophet asked me to take my sister to occupy number "10" in his Mansion home during her stay in the city. But as I could not long be absent from my home and business, we soon returned to Ramus, where on the 15th of May, some three weeks later, the Prophet again came and at my house occupied the same room and bed with my sister, that the month previous he had occupied with the daughter of the late Bishop Partridge, as his wife. 

And at this time he sealed to me my first wife for eternity, and gave to me my first plural wife, Mary Ann Hale, an orphan girl raised by my mother then living with us, who is still with me, and is probably the only wife still living with the man to whom she was given by the Prophet.

At the marriage of Sister Almera to the Prophet, there was still our youngest sister, for whom he manifest partiality, and would gladly have married, also, but she being young and partially promised to my first wife's brother, although reluctantly, the matter by him was dropped.

On learning from the Prophet that even in Kirtland "the Lord had required him to take plural wives, and that he had then thought to ask for some of my sister,s" the past with its conditions and influences began more fully to unfold to my mind, the causes that must, at least in part, have led to the great apostasy and disruption in Kirtland. Without a doubt in my mind, Fanny Alger was, at Kirtland, the Prophet's first plural wife, in which, by right of his calling, he was justified of the Lord (see D&C 132:59-60); while Oliver Cowdery, J. Carter, W. Parish, or others were not justified of the Lord either in their criticisms upon the doings of the Prophet, or in their becoming a "law unto themselves," through which they lost the light of their calling and were left in darkness.
Fanny A., when asked by her brother and others, even after the Prophet's death, regarding her relations to him, replied: "That is all a matter of our own, and I have nothing to communicate." Her parents died in Utah, true to the church. And to my knowledge, was by President Kimball in the temple at St. George introduced as "Brother of the Prophet Joseph's first plural wife."

(http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/BFJohnson.html)

Religious Stress

I wanted to share this. I've come across a couple of tales of suicide due to religious stress. It isn't an easy read.

http://www.lifeaftermormonism.net/profiles/blogs/this-is-the-most-powerful-story-i-ve-yet-read-of-how-the-church

Sharing Vulnerability

I found this article in a Facebook group. I really liked it.

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/sharing-vulnerability-after-a-change-in-beliefs/

Auugghhh!

‎"Elders, never love your wives one hair's breadth further than they adorn the Gospel, never love them so but that you can leave them at a moment's warning without shedding a tear. Should you love a child any more than this? No."
Brigham Young, JoD 3:354
http://journalofdiscourses.com/3/50

From NewOrderMormon.com

I found this in a recent thread at newordermormon.com

Keewon wrote:What we need to do is ask: What would you expect to find scientifically if the BofM story were just made up? How would that look different from what you actually find?

This is an important question, so let's explore it. If Joseph Smith made up the BoM, we would expect to see the same things that we see in other works of fiction:

 

- No archeological, linguistic, anthropological, or biological evidence that the civilizations or events in the book existed.

- Evidence that the origins of the book can be traced to the time and place where it was written.

- The book will contain the biases and ideologies of its era and the prejudices of the author.

- Errors in the first edition that are corrected in subsequent editions.

- Possible borrowing from other authors, including borrowing the errors in the original sources.

- The reception will be mixed: some people will like the book and others will be bored by it.

- Etc. You know the rest of these.

 

Additionally, what would we expect to see if someone did not have an ancient artifact (in this case, the gold plates) but wanted people to believe he had the artifact?

 

- He would not let anyone see the artifact, and he would threaten anyone who tried to see the artifact with death.

- He would conveniently rid himself of the artifact when it was no longer "needed"

- Those who did see the artifact would not see it directly, but would see it through supernatural means.

 

If the BoM was what it claims to be we would expect to see:

 

- A mountain of evidence of all kinds that the BoM civilizations existed, and direct evidence could easily be identified for specific events in the BoM

- A book that clearly came from a different era than the era in which it was written and that is utterly foreign in its biases, prejudices, and ideologies.

- No (or very few) errors in the original edition

- Since historians do not need to borrow from other works, there would be no borrowing

- If God wants everyone to believe in the Book of Mormon, he would have brought about a situation where every reasonable person who read the book would believe in it.

 

If JS had gold plates, we would expect that:

 

- He would show the plates to people he trusted, and they would see the plates with their normal eyes

- If God wants us to believe that JS translated the BoM, God could have left the plates in JS's hands so that the plates could be independently examined, which would show that JS's translation was correct, thus converting many people to the BoM.

 

It looks to me like we see exactly what we would expect to see if JS made up the BoM and we do not see what we would expect to see if JS translated the BoM as he claimed. I'd say the evidence is pretty conclusive.

And there was also this earlier:

We can go around and around on this but my point is that there is no actual evidence of a historical BoM, tons of evidence against and plenty of excuses to try to patch the massive holes.

 

Here's a brief list of issues off the top of my head:

 

-King James word-for-word transcriptions from 1769 edition, including errors

-DNA evidence shows no connection between Amerinds and Hebrews

-No non-LDS archaeologist has seen any correlation between artifacts and BoM

-Olmec & Mayan cultures can be traced back to millennia before BoM

-No evidence of Old World culture intrusion into New World

-BoM Includes post-captivity Deutero-Isaiah (written after Lehi’s time)

-Lehi’s dream same as Joseph Smith Sr.’s

-New Testament language and quotes

-Empty Americas in BoM - no mention of aborigines

-Americas intentionally kept secret from all others:: 2 Nephi 1:8

-Specifically names flora and fauna but fails to mention other (Asian-descended) people

-The forged verses from the last chapter of Mark appear word-for-word in Mormon 9

-B.H. Roberts analysis “pious but naive mind” & View of Hebrews parallels

-No old world flora & fauna in Americas

-No American flora and fauna in BoM (corn is exception)

-Steel & other metallurgy - Amerinds in BoM times were stone age people

-Jaredite steel predates the iron age.

-People don’t develop metallurgy and then forget it

-Viking/Nephite comparison

-Roman/Nephite comparison

-Names borrowed from extant sources (e.g. Cumorah & Moroni)

-Many location names very similar to town names of Joseph’s surroundings

-19th Century religion & contemporary concerns throughout BoM

-Similarity of Sharem & Korihor despite intervening centuries

-BoM teaches 19th Century Protestantism, not current LDS doctrine nor ancient doctrine

-BoM teaches trinitarian Godhead, Joseph developed LDS Godhead later

-2nd edition changes to move away from trinitarian Godhead

-Literal fire and brimstone Hell

-The Lemba tribe: an African parallel to BoM migration, but easily proven with DNA

-JS never quoted or taught from the BoM

-Dramatic differences between Harris’ and Anthon’s accounts of transcript

-Languages identified by Anthon (in Harris’ account) didn’t exist in Lehi’s time

-No one has ever been able to make sense of Anthon Transcript “caractors”

-Apologist geography contradicts prophetic statements (hemispheric, location of Cumorah, etc.) right up to Comorah quotes by Hinkley

-Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel demonstrates improbablility of BoM claims

-Requires belief that there was no death before The Fall

-Requires belief in a literal global flood

-Jaredite story requires literal belief in Tower of Babel & confusion of languages

-Witness descriptions of gold plates and urim & thummim are wildly inconsistent

-Joseph Sr’s description of gold plates: ½ thick case with masonic symbols

-None of the witness descriptions on the plates would fit in Alvin's writing box

-Native American DNA traces to 40,000 year old human remains found in China

-Number of phrases taken directly from 19th Century sources too numerous to list

-Concepts and phrases lifted directly from John Bunyan

-Stories of Indian writings on gold plates were common in Joseph’s environment

-Stories of a white race destroyed by barbaric Indian race were common in Joseph's environment

-War stories, tactics and phrases lifted from Revolutionary War and War of 1812 accounts

-Australian aboriginal DNA analogy:

-Clearly shows appearance of Asians 4200 years ago

-Dogs and new weapon technology appear in Australia at same time as new DNA

Last edited by Hagoth on Fri Feb 01, 2013 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total. 

 

 http://forum.newordermormon.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29720&start=40