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Evidence of the Book of Mormon

dan

Well-Known Member
I really enjoy studying evidences of the veracity of the Book of Mormon. Of course it's no legitimate basis for a testimony, but once a testimony is secured it sure is fascinating. Does anyone have any interesting things they've found out about the Book of Mormon that substantiate its claim as inspired scripture? I'll give an example.

Chiasmus is an ancient literary form that was almost exclusive to Semitic peoples and is found throughout the Bible. Joseph Smith had no way of knowing about Chiasmus, and yet the Book of Mormon has numerous examples of it in its many varied forms. Cool, huh?
 

Aqualung

Tasty
A teacher of mine gave me an interesting thing about the book of mormon. It was about an Egyptian who was very well-educated in Semitic languages. When he found out that the BoM was about Jews, he decided to study it. He basically translated it from English to Arabic, which cleared up a lot of things in the book. It showed that such words as "stiffneckedness," verbs like "did eat/go/do," phrases like "it must needs be," and numbers like "fourty and three," while weird and awkward in English, translate very nicely into Arabic. Also, he found that certain things which were mentioned, like ziff, giving geneaologies, and things of that nature are very well in keeping with what would be expected given the source of the books. It would be very exceptional if Joseph Smith was able to make up this book on his own and still have all these consistancies, given his age and the time in which he lived. That's just another case in which it is more illogical to think that he just made up the book and wrote it to throw people off, or whatever.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Aqualung said:
A teacher of mine gave me an interesting thing about the book of mormon. It was about an Egyptian who was very well-educated in Semitic languages. When he found out that the BoM was about Jews, he decided to study it. He basically translated it from English to Arabic, which cleared up a lot of things in the book. It showed that such words as "stiffneckedness," verbs like "did eat/go/do," phrases like "it must needs be," and numbers like "fourty and three," while weird and awkward in English, translate very nicely into Arabic. Also, he found that certain things which were mentioned, like ziff, giving geneaologies, and things of that nature are very well in keeping with what would be expected given the source of the books. It would be very exceptional if Joseph Smith was able to make up this book on his own and still have all these consistancies, given his age and the time in which he lived. That's just another case in which it is more illogical to think that he just made up the book and wrote it to throw people off, or whatever.
Hi, Aqualung.

I bet you're referring to Dr. Sami Hanna, who was a colleage of my dad's. Shortly before translating the book, he had transferred from the University of Chicago to accept a teaching position in the Univerity of Utah's Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Hanna pointed out that there are ten basic characteristics of the Semitic family of languages, characteristics that Joseph Smith could not possibly have been aware of but which are consistent the translation of the plates. If you have the same book I do (it's called Little Known Evidences of the Book of Mormon, by Brenton G. Yorgason), you have already discovered how fascinating Dr. Hanna's story is.

Kathryn
 

dan

Well-Known Member
I have a Liahona from 1978 that has an article about the several different Semitic literary stylings that intersperse themselves throughout the Book of Mormon. It's a cool article.
 

Aqualung

Tasty
Katzpur said:
Hi, Aqualung.

I bet you're referring to Dr. Sami Hanna, who was a colleage of my dad's. Shortly before translating the book, he had transferred from the University of Chicago to accept a teaching position in the Univerity of Utah's Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Dr. Hanna pointed out that there are ten basic characteristics of the Semitic family of languages, characteristics that Joseph Smith could not possibly have been aware of but which are consistent the translation of the plates. If you have the same book I do (it's called Little Known Evidences of the Book of Mormon, by Brenton G. Yorgason), you have already discovered how fascinating Dr. Hanna's story is.

Kathryn

wow! :D That's who I was refferring to, alright! That's really awesome that he worked with your dad! I'm highly impressed. Actually, I don't have that book, but I think I'll check it out.
 

SoyLeche

meh...
Let's see...

My Uncle has a facsimile of a carving that he saw while in Guatemala, I think, which matches fairly closly to Lehi's Dream. It is discussed a bit here:

http://www.mindspring.com/~kimball3/izapa.html

Also, I studied Statistics at BYU, and we had weekly seminars (I know, sounds like fun). One of them discussed different ways to decipher whether different texts were written by the same person. I'm not entirely familiar with how it works, but something about how often certain words and phrases are used, etc. I guess the technique has been used to see if Shakesphere really wrote what is attributed to him, and on some of the Federalist Papers of questionable authorship.

Anyway, some of the profesors at the university applied this technique to the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and some other known writings of people like Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, etc. The results were interesting.

First of all, it appears that different parts of the book were written by different people, and none of them are similar to known writings of Joseph Smith.

They also showed a graph of how close the Book of Mormon is to modern day english (I can't remember how they came up with this). The x-axis went from the first page to the last. For the most part, the graph was level, but with jumps at places like Words of Mormon, and in Mosiah (where the naration is taken over by Zeniff).

There was one shift that didn't really make sense. It happened in 3 Nephi Chapter 5, and there is no indication of a change in author. If you look at that chapter, though, it is kind of odd. It's the one where Mormon reintroduces himself, which seems redundant. One theory that was presented is that Mormon realized that he was running out of time, and needed to cover a lot of material, so maybe he swithched to writing in another dialect or something to that effect. Your guess is as good as mine.

For a statistics seminar, I found it pretty interesting.
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
I must begin by saying that while I've done a lot of research into the archaeology and paleolinguistics of the Book of Mormon, I'm not a fan of attempts to "prove" or "disprove" it. As I've said elsewhere, "to the believer, no proof is necessary; to the unbeliever, no proof is enough." For example, I think it's a shame that we only hear of chiasm as a 'proof' for a book that relies, in the end, on faith. I don't think Nephi used chiasm just so we could point it out in a debate with someone whose mind is already made up.

Further, I have to admit that a lot of those trying to prove the Book of Mormon using archeological evidences are especially prone to confirmation bias. Further, some remain so bound by their determination to find artifacts that they dismiss perfectly valid arguments from paleolinguistics that would suggest no such artifacts will ever be found.

That being said, I believe the best evidences (or at least my personal favorites) are tiny details that reflect uncanny knowledge of the subject. It's the amassing of these tiny details, rather than any single piece of evidence, that builds the greatest case for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Therefore, in the interest of amassing and discussing evidences, allow me to add a few tidbits:

* "Laban and his fifty"--the garrisons of Jerusalem were in platoons of fifty, called "fifties". (J. Offord, "Archaeological Notes on Jewish Antiquities," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly 1916 p. 148) Joseph Smith might have guessed this number, but that would make for truly a remarkable stroke of luck.

* "As the Lord liveth, and as I live..."--swearing an oath to pacify a fearful stranger is a practice understood among nomads of Arabia, but in order to be effective an oath must be by the life of something, even if only a blade of grass. The only oath more powerful than an oath by one's one life is one by the life of God. Thus when Nephi has only an instant to keep Zoram from fleeing, he makes a quick oath, and his former enemy is immediately tractable. The idea of using an oath to pacify a stranger would have been foreign to Joseph Smith, and knowing the exact type of oath that would have been effective seems staggeringly unlikely from a Vermont farm boy with three years of formal schooling.

* No Baal names in the Book of Mormon--for decades the Book of Mormon suffered a black mark because it had none of the Baal names that thrive among the Old Testament. Examining a list compiled of the Jerusalem refugees who fled to Elephantine (in Egypt) at the time of Lehi, one scholar notes that the "...the change of Baal names, by substitution, is in agreement with Hosea's foretelling that they should be no more used by the Isrealites, and consequently it is most interesting to find how the latest archaeological discoveries confirm the Prophet, for out of some four hundred personal names among the Elephantine papyri, not one is compounded of Baal...." As Hugh Nibley notes in Lehi in the Desert (p. 35), "Since Elephantine was settled largely by Israelites who fled Jerusalem after its destruction, their personal names should show the same tendencies as those in the Book of Mormon."
(J. Offord, "Further Illustrations of the Elaphantine Aramaic Jewish Papyri," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly 1917 p. 127)

* "This is the first time that priestcraft has been introduced among this people..."--so why would Alma already have a term for it when it first shows up? When he addresses Nehor (Alma 1:12) he speaks as if he is already familiar with the dangers of priestcraft. If what he says is true, that this is the first time it's appeared among the Nephites, it stands to reason that any knowledge they had of it would come from the land of their origins, as recorded in their records or oral history. Likewise, Mosiah suggests replacing a kingdom with a system of judges, a system that prompts Korihor to accuse the chief judge of using "ordinances and performances which are laid down by ancient priests, to usurp power and authority...." From Nibley:

"From the eleventh dynasty on, the history of Egypt is largely concerned with the efforts of the priests of Amon, wit the chief priest of Amon at their head, to gain control of the country. About 1085 B.C. the chief priest of Amon actually siezed the throne of the south, and from that time on the 'the high priest of Amon...could and constantly did reduce the king to a position of subservience.' The name of the great king who crowned himself in Thebes was Herihor or Kherihor. The cornerstone of the priestly rule was a new system of popular law courts, in which the priests of Amon were the judges, and which at first competed with and then supplanted the regular courts everywhere." (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert 1952 p. 21; inset quote is from H.R. Hall, Camp. Anc. Hist. III p. 268)

* What are we looking for again?--Much has been made of the declarations by groups such as the Smithsonian that there is no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, but most of these groups don't know what they are looking for, even when it's right in front of them. The other day while doing research I checked out a book from my local public library--Aztecs: Reign of Blood and Splendor (Time/Life 1992; part of the "Lost Civilizations" series) and skimmed through the familiar opening description of Cortez' arrival. I was already familiar with this part, because fellow LDS scholars have made such a big deal about Cortez being mistaken for Quetzalcoatl--a teacher-god who promised to return one day. LDS scholars claim this return of "Quetzalcoatl" was actually a corruption of the story of the Second Coming, and that this points to Jesus Christ's visit to the Americas as recorded in the Book of Mormon.

Unfortunately, many of the parallels these scholars draw between Quetzalcoatl and Christ are taken from texts that were recorded with the help or at the behest of the Catholic church, making it easy for other scholars to dismiss these parallels as the effects of Catholic indoctrination. Harder to dismiss are the references to Book of Mormon events that the Catholic priests would have no knowledge of. I found such a reference, staring back at me from page 22 of this book, and I doubt that any scholar from the Smithsonian would have seen the clues that mark it as evidence of the Book of Mormon. Here's the passage; can you find them?

"According to one Aztec codex, nightly for a year 'there arose a sign like a tongue of fire, like a flame. Pointed and wide-based, it pierced the heavens to their midpoint, their very heart. All night, off to the east, it looked as if day had dawned. Then the sun arose and destroyed it.' A temple inexplicably burst into flames, and the fire could not be extinguished. On a calm day, lightning struck the roof of another temple. A large column of light was seen in the east. A comet appeared one afternoon, hurtling from west to east and 'scattering sparks like glowing coals.' Lake Tetzcoco was suddenly roiled to flood heights, for no apparent reason. And at night, people claimed to have heard a woman weeping. 'She would pace about wailing, "My dear children, we have to go! Where can I take you?"'"

That's all for now! I'll post a few more later!
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
Additional evidences

Doesn't anyone want to hazard a guess at my clues? You don't have to be LDS to try; I don't really care, although as I said above, it's the kind of thing that will probably only occur to someone who has read the Book of Mormon multiple times. I might as well give a hint: these events supposedly preceded or foretold the arrival of Cortez, who, we are told, they mistook for Quetzalcoatl, a god many LDS scholars identify with Jesus Christ. What events preceded the arrival of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon?

Evidence can be divided into several different categories, a few of which I've already spoken about, but in my opinion one of the most fascinating is also one of the least convincing. I find the category fascinating not because of its weight as 'evidence,' but because it falls so close to my own chosen career. The category of evidence that I'm talking about is cultural confession by the author(s). If Joseph Smith (or any other 1820's American) wrote the Book of Mormon, he would have to have invented the cultures that existed in the book from out of his own mind, and we should expect things that one would expect to find in a 1820's cultural artifact. In short, it would be a work of science fiction.

Award winning science fiction author Orson Scott Card expounded on this approach in his essay, "The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice?" Now part of the Storyteller in Zion collection, this ground-breaking essay was unique in that the author had some experience doing what people accused Joseph Smith of doing: creating vastly different cultures and lifestyles based on the experiences of his time. Please forgive me for quoting and/or paraphrasing Card extensively; as I said, he's the only one I know of who's really ever taken this approach, and he has a lot of experience in the field.

What would we expect to find in any "origin of the Indians" work by any 1820's American:

Lost Tribes--even to this day, most folks think this is what the Book of Mormon is about, but it's not. With the ten lost tribes as a hot theory in the 1820's, who would write a book about someone escaping Jerusalem in 600 BC?

Women--Romantic love was everywhere in the 1820's, and Biblical scholars and historians played up the famous pairs in the Bible--Ruth and Boaz, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, etc. What 1820's American would write a religious epic, supposedly drawing on the Bible for material, and name only three women?! None of these were romantic figures, either; only one author mentions having a wife, and Nephi even fails to name the woman who saved his life! Card has no explanation for this, simply citing it as a cultural stamp outside of 1820's America, but I found an interesting related note in Von Hagen's World of the Maya, which states that to the Mayans, the best woman was one of whom nothing at all was said, good or bad.

Shmeerps--"Science fiction writers and critics are quite aware of a long tradition of what James Blish calls 'smeerps.' Blish pointed out how silly it was that most science fiction writers, when trying to show an alien fauna, would produce a creature that looked like a rabbit and acted like a rabbit and was treated like a rabbit, and yet was called a 'shmeerp.' This is ludicrous, of course. People migrating to a new land with strange plants and animals will use familiar names for the new creatures. Thus the English immigrants to America called the bison 'buffalo' and referred to maise as 'Indian corn' and finally just 'corn,' even though in England that word had been a generic term for grain."
"Thus it is no more surprising that the word horse appears in the Book of Mormon than that the word buffalo was used in a nation where there were no buffaloes but only bison."

Indians as Joseph Knew Them--Where are the Happy Hunting Grounds, the peace pipe, wigwams, canoes, teepees? "In short," says Card, "where is James Fenimore Cooper?"

Exposition--exposition is the process of introducing your reader to various facts in the background of your story. It's found in any genre, but in science fiction it plays a critical role, because the reader must be brought up to speed on so much more. There are generally three ways to do exposition:
Blatant--This is where you stop the action cold to explain everything to the reader, which you can only do if you know the viewpoint of the reader. That's the way sci-fi was done pre-Heinlein, and that's also the way most novice sci-fi writers start out, especially ones who are used to writing in other genres.
Subtle--Heinlein created the subtle exposition found in modern sci-fi. "The classic example," says Card, "is when, in telling of a character leaving the room, Heinlein wrote, 'the door dilated.' No explanation of the technology behind dilating doors, just a simple statement that seems to take the new technology for granted."
Not at all--The only place you won't find cultural or technological exposition at all is in a genuine historical artifact, because the creators didn't realize that things could ever be different. A person from a culture that uses Heinlein's dilating doors probably wouldn't mention the door at all in speaking or writing about someone leaving the room. Says Card: "'I Love Lucy' episodes never stopped to explain, 'By the way, the husband is the head of the house and has the authority to tell his wife what to do, just as if she were a child.' They assume that the audience will know that. They assume that the audience doesn't need a defense of Ricky's spanking Lucy. 'By the way, this isn't wife abuse.' The need for such an explanation doesn't occur to them." And of course, the Book of Mormon doesn't use cultural or technological exposition. The result may be confusing to us today, but if it wasn't, something would be fishy.

Trades--Joseph was a tradesman, coming from a society that identified people by what they did: who are you? A doctor, a plumber, an engineer? What? People in other cultures identify themselves with things such as family or village of origin or other such labels, and apparently the Book of Mormon cultures did, too, because there is no talk of trades, as one would expect from a book written by an 1820's American. We have evidence from which to infer that Nephi was a metalworker, but he never uses it as a label, and he shouldn't.

What we would not expect to find
Swooning...by men!!--A king of the Lamanites, and Ammon, a Nephite, both swoon to show great emotion. To an 1820's American, swooning was something women did when they were shocked or scared, and for a man to do so ever would have been unthinkably weak and cowardly. Tell that to the guy who chopped the arms of his assailants, why don't you?!
Kings and Sub-kings--Ammon goes to free his brothers, and his newfound friend and convert King Lamoni heads out with him, when they meet Lamoni's father, also a king. Hold it! What monarchial system would Joesph have been familiar with? Great Britain, where if you had a king whose son was also called king, and both are alive...that's called a rebellion. There's no question about it. Yet Lamoni and his father argue not about who is really king--they both are, so they say, and yet they'd get along fine if there wasn't a Nephite sitting next to Lamoni. Where on earth did Joseph get this idea?
Instant Cities--When Captain Moroni wants to fortify the wilderness agains the Lamanites, he founds cities all over the place. Why not forts? Apparently the implication is that Moroni isn't colonizing, but gathering people who are already there and organizing them. Alien concept to Jospeh, perfectly fine for mesoamerica.
Military Interest--Joseph Smith showed no interest in military affairs, yet the chronicler of the wars in Alma shows a great attention to detail that suggests it was written by someone with considerable interest, if not considerable experience, in military affairs. The supposed chronicler/narrator is Mormon, a military man from his youth with a son who just happens to be named after the main character in those wars.
Books Named For the 'Wrong' Characters--Finally, the structure of the Book of Mormon is bizarre; the Book of Mosiah is half about Alma, and the book about Alma is actually about the son of that other Alma, and he shares his book with his son Helaman, but when there's a book named 'Helaman' it's about the son of the previous Helaman, and it's shared with his son Nephi.... There's an unmistakable pattern there, but it's not from the Bible, nor from any other place where Joseph supposedly borrowed his material.

Wow, this was long, and that wasn't even the half of it...oh well, I'll post this and people can shower me with praise or tomatoes as they wish. There's more to come.
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
Since folks are looking for evidences, I'll bump this up to the top. My last post was recorded, but strangely the thread didn't rise ot the top when that happened. Servers were a little wonky that night, I guess.

Of course, I'm still waiting for responses on the evidence that I found in the Time/Life book. I'm especially interested in responses to this because it illustrates how a person unfamiliar with the Book of Mormon might not recognize evidence when it is staring them in the face.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
tedicast said:
I found this on another forum and found it interesting. It's about DNA evidence and the BOM.

http://mailafriend.guide.real.com/index.html?link=http%3a%2f%2fwww.myfaith.com%2fDNA-vs-Book-of-Mormon-BB.ram
Tedicast... We just don't seem to be able to lose one another, do we?

Interesting this should come up today. I just attended a fascinating seminar just yesterday. One of the speakers, Dr. Ryan Parr, spoke on this topic. I'll admit that a lot of what he said went over my head (the sciences never were my strongest subject), but just so that you'll know that he was a lot smarter than I am ( ;) ), I'll start by describing some of the projects he has been involved in recently. He is currently working on the DNA sequencing of Egyptian mummies found at the Dakhleh Oasis, which has been in the news quite a bit over the last several years. If you saw the PBS series, "Secrets of the Dead," you may have seen this work profiled. More recently, he has been working with other scientists to identify unclaimed victims of the Titanic by use of mtDNA. One of his areas of greatest interest is mitochondrial DNA studies of Native Americans, specializing in ancient DNA.

It would be impossible for me to even begin to summarize the main points of his lecture. If I am able to get a copy of his paper (which I am going to try to do), I might have a better shot at explaining what he had to say. As a matter of fact, if I learn tht it is available on the Internet, I'll let you know.

The Book of Mormon populations assimilated into the ancient genetic topograhy of ancient America, and current population data is simply inadequate to be able to draw any firm conclusions pertaining to an ancient history such as theirs. Population histories are extremely complex, and small kin-associated groups are at an even greater disadvantage. After 104 generations, it is absurd to be able to expect to see a clear ancient Near-eastern genetic signature. To try to do so would be analogous to reading the last chapter of a Sherlock Holmes novel and try to correctly guess the sequence of events that eventually led to the solving of the mystery.
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
Thanks, tedicast! I've already commented on this evidence on another thread. It supports the interpretation of the J?aredite and Mulekite origins as put forward by Hugh Nibley and Orson Scott Card. And as I said in that other thread, it ends up being evidence for multiple theories, and is therefore of limited value.

But that's not to say it's not fun to go looking, or to talk about it! Thanks again!
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
(Thought I'd bring this over here, just to keep all the evidence in one place.)

Brought this up on another thread, regarding the Aztec and Mayan codices and their references to Quetzalcoatl as a corruption of Christ. Let me know if it's a little disjointed, and I'll do my best to explain the background.

Also, if the Spanish added these elements of Christianity, what would cause them to alter the Works of Ixtlilxochitl, an Aztec prince who recorded the oral history of his people, such that he would include the following elements:

--Three groups of migrants from across the water (consistent with the Book of Mormon account of Jaredites, Nephites, and Mulekites).
--The first group were called Ancient Ones, or Giants, or First Toltecs ("giants" is consistent with Book of Mormon accounts of Jaredites being extremely large).
--The second group, called the Toltecs, split into two groups who had wars between them, with dates that correspond to the accounts in the Book of Mormon.
--The third group, called the Olmecs, slew the last survivors of the Giants, and afterwards joined with the Toltecs, who became the dominant culture. Compare with the Book of Mormon, where the third group (the Mulekites) took in the last survivor of the Jaredites (Coriantumr) who died a few months later. Later the Mulekites united with the Nephites, who became the dominant culture.
(Source: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon Vol. 1, by Milton R. Hunter, p. 43)

So there are corresponding elements in the accounts that would have been unknown to the Spanish.
 

DavyCrocket2003

Well-Known Member
DeepShadow said:
Of course, I'm still waiting for responses on the evidence that I found in the Time/Life book. I'm especially interested in responses to this because it illustrates how a person unfamiliar with the Book of Mormon might not recognize evidence when it is staring them in the face.

I was fascinated by what you read in the "Time/Life" book. The first time I read what you wrote I recognized the similarities to many of the signs of Christ's Birth and death. The part about it looking like dawn in the east all through the night and a bright toungue of flame: Doesn't that sound like the sign Samuel gave of Christ's birth? And the woman crying at night about her children: Try reading 3 Nephi 10:4-7. And all the other signs and wonders. It sounds like the account of all the signs and wonders that apeared at and around Christ's birth and death.
 

DeepShadow

White Crow
That's it! But of course, these would only be picked up by someone who is familiar with the BoM account.

Here's a few more: I went to my local university library where they have an excellent collection of books dealing with Mesoamerica. Victor Von Hagen's text, World of the Maya, begins in the opening chapters with repeated and scathing criticisms of the theory that the Mayas were descended from Lost Tribes of Israel, and then proceeds to inadvertantly offer evidences of the Book of Mormon account. To wit:

* The elaborate road-system that had all but disappeared at the time of Columbus, which has since been rediscovered by archaeologists. Says Von Hagen:

"The sacbe [road] was dry-laid. The Maya engineer first laid down a roughly dressed limestone bed; the stones in this varied from twenty-five to three hundred pounds. On top of this went a limestone gravel which when wetted and tramped down made a hard, smooth surface." (p.184)

At the time of Joseph Smith, who knew that the ancient Americans had built roads?

* "Maya society has been likened to the city-states of Greece. The comparison is most apt." (p. 45)

Anyone guess how this one may be significant? I'll give you a hint, because it's pretty obscure: Joseph has been mocked mercilessly for claiming that Jesus was born at Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. The passage in question is Alma 7:10, which begins, "And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers...."

* Regarding how little we truly know about the Maya, Von Hagen says:

"Of the extensive corpus of Maya texts, fully 60 per cent remains undeciphered. Those glyphs which deal with dates and calculations can be read; those that deal with ritualistic matters and history cannot." (p. 197)

I'm still looking for the brief reference about forts with wooden palisades, but it was there. Stay tuned!
 

groovyable

Member
Hello, ive just read acouple of posts on here... and i am quite shocked that all of you are not refering to the Bible to back your ideas. Is there any physical evidance to prove that Jesus went to America ? Have you any scriptures from the Bible that links to the Book Of Mormon ? Am not digging at the Book yet certain points ive read about the Book Of Mormon, contredicts the Bible.

Any help from any of you mormons would be grateful, cheers xxx
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
groovyable said:
Hello, ive just read acouple of posts on here... and i am quite shocked that all of you are not refering to the Bible to back your ideas. Is there any physical evidance to prove that Jesus went to America ? Have you any scriptures from the Bible that links to the Book Of Mormon ? Am not digging at the Book yet certain points ive read about the Book Of Mormon, contredicts the Bible.

Any help from any of you mormons would be grateful, cheers xxx
I hate it when someone starts asking questions like this five minutes before I've got to start my 8-hour work day. ;) I'd love to address these questions, but it will have to wait until this evening. Meanwhile, maybe some other Latter-day Saint will drop by.
 

SoyLeche

meh...
groovyable said:
Hello, ive just read acouple of posts on here... and i am quite shocked that all of you are not refering to the Bible to back your ideas. Is there any physical evidance to prove that Jesus went to America ? Have you any scriptures from the Bible that links to the Book Of Mormon ? Am not digging at the Book yet certain points ive read about the Book Of Mormon, contredicts the Bible.

Any help from any of you mormons would be grateful, cheers xxx
Any physical evidence that Christ visited the Americas? No, there isn't. For that matter, there is no physical evidence that Christ ever existed, but I don't think that will stop you from believing in him. It certainly doesn't stop me.

Other evidence? You can peruse http://farms.byu.edu/ if you like. There are plenty of articles there to look at.

Scriptures from the Bible:

John 10:16 - although that one can be interpreted different ways, we believe he was talking about his coming visit to the Americas, among other places.

Ezekiel 37: 16 - 17 - again, open to interpretation, but we believe that the "stick of Joseph" refers to the BoM.

Isaiah 29: 11-12 - once again, can be interpreted different ways

Are there any scriptures that can't be interpreted different ways? I doubt it. Just ask Jewscout or Jay if the Old Testament talks about Jesus Christ anywhere. I believe it does, but they will probably disagree.

As far as contradictions go, we've had many such threads, and so far I haven't seen any real contradictions brought up. You are free to try though :)

Also, you mention "points I've read about the BoM" - may I ask where those points come from. You'll be much better off reading the actual BoM to find out what it says.
 

Katzpur

Not your average Mormon
Hi, groovyable. I just wanted to respond to the questions you asked earlier, even though SoyLeche has already given you some good answers.

groovyable said:
Hello, ive just read acouple of posts on here... and i am quite shocked that all of you are not refering to the Bible to back your ideas.
First of all, I'm not quite sure what kinds of Biblical evidences you might be thinking of. If you could explain what kinds of things you're thinking of, maybe it would help.

Is there any physical evidance to prove that Jesus went to America?
Oh, I'd say there is about as much physical evidence that He went to the American continent as there is that He returned to the Earth in 1914. ;)

Have you any scriptures from the Bible that links to the Book Of Mormon?
There are several, actually, although I suspect you would interpret them differently than we do. Here's one for you to consider:

When Jesus Christ spoke to his followers in the Holy Land, He is recorded in the Gospel of John as having said, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” He had also previously said that His own personal mission was only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. These "other sheep" would have had to be people who were evidently not living in the Holy Land but who were, at the same time, of the house of Israel. It is also significant that He did not say that they would hear His words (as taught by His disciples) but that they would hear His voice, indicating that He would personally teach them.

Am not digging at the Book yet certain points ive read about the Book Of Mormon, contredicts the Bible.
I'm not aware of any contradictions myself, but if you'd like to discuss any you believe to exist, I'd be happy to address them. Keep in mind, though, that if the Bible is silent on a topic and that topic is mentioned in the Book of Mormon, this cannot be considered a contradiction. :)
 

PHOTOTAKER

Well-Known Member
When Jesus Christ spoke to his followers in the Holy Land, He is recorded in the Gospel of John as having said, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” He had also previously said that His own personal mission was only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. These "other sheep" would have had to be people who were evidently not living in the Holy Land but who were, at the same time, of the house of Israel. It is also significant that He did not say that they would hear His words (as taught by His disciples) but that they would hear His voice, indicating that He would personally teach them.

although there are more names for Jesus Christ names are endless so here are a few in the americas that have refrance to Jesus... this is an excerp of a book that i have... and i did a little diging and found all to be accerit...

The book is “the dead sea scrolls and other important
discoveries” by Vernon W. Mattson Jr.

Almost two thousand ears ago a mysterious white man
appeared in various tribes among the American Nations.
He came to Peru from the pacific. He traveled through
South and Central America among the Mayans, into
Mexico and all of north America, then back to Ancient
Tula, from whence he departed across the Atlantic tot
he land of his origin. Who was this white Being,
prophet, healer, god, who spoke a thousand languages,
healed the sick, raised the dead, and taught in the
same words as Jesus Himself?

He was known by various names throughout the Americas.
In Mexico they called him Quetzalcoatl, Votan and
Wixepeckocha. In Guatemala, Virachocha and Hyustus in
Peru. In Brazil, Sume and Bochica in Columbia. To the
Peruvians he was also known as Con-Tici or Lila_Tici,
tici Meaning both Creator and the Light. To the Mayans
he was known as Kukulcan.

In the Polynesian Islands he was Lono, Kana, Kane or
Kon, and sometimes Kanaloa – the Great light of great
brightness. He also was known as Kane-Akea, the Great
Progenitor, or Tonga-roa, the god of the Ocean Sun.

In the Popol Vuh he was known as Huracan, the great
Lord. His home was across the seas and references to
sea voyages recur Frequently in the legends.

Among the north Americans tribes he was known as
Chee-zoos, the Dawn God. In the southeast,
E-See_co_wah, the Lord of the wind and Water. In the
northeast, Hea-wah-sah, mwaning He form afar off. In
the Dakotas he was known as Waicomah, the fair God who
ruled the ocean. Among the Choctah, he was known as
Ee-Meshee, the Wind God. When he came to the Yakima
People, they called him Tia-acomah meaning Lord
Miracle Worker.

A Mayan legends says: ‘…in ancient times there came to
that land twenty men the chief of who was called
Cocolan.. they wore flowing robes and sandals on their
feet, they had long beards and their heads wrer bare.
They ordered that the people should confess and fast.’
(Orio miller, the day spring, 33.) Many of the legends
have the white bearded god appearing suddenly form the
east in long flowing robes, sandals on his feet and
marks in his hands.
 
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