Why Dont Christians Accept the Book of Mormon as Valid? (Jesus, Earth)

[SoyLeche]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

Why would a group of Israelites landing in Guatemala, installing themselves as rulers over the local natives, splitting into three kingdoms, expanding throughout Central America, and waging several wars between them all escape the notice of the Mayans who were in the area at the time, had written records and presumably were the people being ruled by these Israelite aristocracies?

And why is there zero influence of either Hebrew or Egyptian in either the written or spoken language of the Native populations that were ruled by these groups? You're talking about a level of conquest similar to the Roman Empire. We see linguistic clues of the Romans in languages all over Europe and the Mediterranean; nothing like this is present in Central America, even though it was supposedly under similar control by the descendents of Lehi.

Every grand kingdom, from the Egyptians to the Bablyonians, Medo-Persians, Inca, Vikings and Mongols, has left signs of its existence. Why didn't these three?

I would suggest you look into some of the LDS scholars that have addressed these questions. Search farms.byu.edu or get a book like "An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon". They can and will go into detail that I am unable to.

[DeepShadow]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

So... a segment of ancient Israelites were shown by God how to make and navigate super-duper ships that were light years ahead of anything else they knew of, built just enough ships to get over to North America, and then stopped, never built a similar ship ever again, and forgot what they knew about navigation... why?

I don't see how that's any less (or more) plausible than an 1800's American cranking out a fraudulent history of America, complete with poetic forms that had not been discovered yet.

If this thread is going to devolve into archeological one-upmanship, than let's be fair about it. I admit, critics of the Book of Mormon have lots to work with making it look bad--horses, ships, steel and whatnot. What bothers me is that they stick to this stuff, and fail to address the hundreds--even thousands--of amazing coincidences and predictions:

--How does the book maintain the exact naming methods of the concurrent Elephantine papyri, which were only discovered after it was published?
--If its a fraud, why does it contain textbook examples of Arabic poetry, Semitic poetry, Bedoin oaths, and Hebrew farewell speeches?
--While the book contains a few elements not found in America by archeologists--horses, chariots, coins--it also contains over fifty elements that were not available to Joseph Smith (or anyone else) when he wrote the book: roads, cement, wooden palisades, and city-states, to name only a few. Why does no one ever try to handle these astounding predictions?

In ignoring such contrary evidence, critics not only commit a huge cherry-picking fallacy, but they fly in the face of archaeological tradition. William Albright himself said that when faced with a work of questionable authenticity, finding potential errors was wrongheaded: one had to look for what was correct about the text, not what was in error. He cited naming traditions, local flavor, and other minute details in his approval of the texts about the Egyptian Sinuhe, which has become the standard for authenticaing documents. Why are critics of the Book of Mormon avoiding this method? Doesn't it make sense that if someone is given a list of, say, calculus problems, that they can have a few wrong answers and still know calculus? For a test to be fair, it needs to compare the number wrong to the number right, not just throw the subject to the wolves upon finding a single wrong answer.

There are many troublesome statements to archaeology in the Book of Mormon, but how can it be getting bulls-eye after bulls-eye in other issues if it's not a factual text? This is the question that critics need to answer.

I've got a standing invitation for anyone to start a one-on-one debate on this topic. Any takers?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

If this thread is going to devolve into archeological one-upmanship, than let's be fair about it. I admit, critics of the Book of Mormon have lots to work with making it look bad--horses, ships, steel and whatnot. What bothers me is that they stick to this stuff, and fail to address the hundreds--even thousands--of amazing coincidences and predictions:

But if the story presented is dependent on things that either can't be proven true or have been proven false, then what do the details matter?

I'm trying to approach the Book of Mormon with an open mind, but it's hard when so many of the core ideas of the story seem to be easily dismissable even with my layman's knowledge of history.

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

--How does the book maintain the exact naming methods of the concurrent Elephantine papyri, which were only discovered after it was published?

I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

--If its a fraud, why does it contain textbook examples of Arabic poetry, Semitic poetry, Bedoin oaths, and Hebrew farewell speeches?

Do you have any examples? Are you just talking about rhyming structure or the like? Something like that could easily be a coincidence, IMO.

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

--While the book contains a few elements not found in America by archeologists--horses, chariots, coins--it also contains over fifty elements that were not available to Joseph Smith (or anyone else) when he wrote the book: roads, cement, wooden palisades, and city-states, to name only a few. Why does no one ever try to handle these astounding predictions?

It seems those are all things that would have been familiar to Joseph Smith; I'd be more impressed by predictions that he makes that were alien to life in 19th Century America, which were then proven true by archaeology.

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

In ignoring such contrary evidence, critics not only commit a huge cherry-picking fallacy, but they fly in the face of archaeological tradition. William Albright himself said that when faced with a work of questionable authenticity, finding potential errors was wrongheaded: one had to look for what was correct about the text, not what was in error. He cited naming traditions, local flavor, and other minute details in his approval of the texts about the Egyptian Sinuhe, which has become the standard for authenticaing documents. Why are critics of the Book of Mormon avoiding this method? Doesn't it make sense that if someone is given a list of, say, calculus problems, that they can have a few wrong answers and still know calculus? For a test to be fair, it needs to compare the number wrong to the number right, not just throw the subject to the wolves upon finding a single wrong answer.

I should point out that I'm not singling out only the Book of Mormon in this regard. I have similar problems with the story of Exodus in the Old Testament: all the archaeological evidence that I've seen contradicts the idea that a large group of people left Egypt for Caanan, where they drove out the original inhabitants and settled there themselves.

[SoyLeche]

Originally Posted by 9-10ths_Penguin

But if the story presented is dependent on things that either can't be proven true or have been proven false, then what do the details matter?

Well, if something can't be proven either way, then it is irrelevant to the discussion.

If something has been proven false then it may well be that the belief that it was that way stems from a misinterpretation. For example, does the term "horse" in the BoM actually mean a horse as we know it? Could it be some other animal that they lacked a term for?

That, and many things that have been "proven false" have later been deemed to be plausible.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Melissa G

You keep on shooting yourself in the foot, but I really am done with this thread...all supposition and no substance.

~M

I suppose it's safe to assum that you know why I quit the church?

[Melissa G]

Yes, it's not hard to fathom

~M~

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

I've got a standing invitation for anyone to start a one-on-one debate on this topic. Any takers?

I can't believe how many times you've mentioned this. Strange how absolutely nobody is interested. I guess most of the people who poke their heads in to find fault with the Book of Mormon know darned well that their knowledge of the book is superficial and best and their sources less than reliable. I would just love to see any one of them go one-on-one with you. If I had the time to devote to such a debate right now, I'd take one of them on myself. Unfortunately, now's not a good time for me to get involved.