LDS Zarahemla Nonexistent

[Solomon Smith]

There is zero archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Zarahemla did not exist.

 

[Ironhold]

For you to say that there is "zero" tells me that you're decades behind on your archaeology.

Entire books have been written noting various discoveries and questioning whether or not they sync up to anything.

Want a quick primer? Here's a page from an apologetics website: Book of Mormon Evidences, Part One: Not Proof, But Indications of Plausibility .

So much has been uncovered that even The Smithsonian was forced to back down on the issue: Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon .

Even the cataclysms that took place in the Book of Mormon lands is plausible, as the descriptions are consistent with radical geologic upheaval and Central America is a mess of tectonic activity due to all of the plates colliding there. Plate tectonics - Wikipedia

 

[Ironhold]

That being said -

I think you need to understand a little bit about me.

I first came online in 2000. Back then, the internet was pretty much Sodom compared to what it is now. Even theology forums could quickly descend into virtual gutter brawls, and one could readily find mainline Christians dropping death threats against their theological opponents like they were Salt Bae with a new recipe.

Back then, it was "get good or go home". If you complained about how toxic it was then you were seen as weak, and watching people suffer psychotic breaks in real time was a thing.

Why do I say this all?

Who do you think was on the receiving end of many of those death threats? It was very often those of us Mormons who wouldn't submit to someone's canned arguments.

Not one single argument you've put forward so far is anything new, either to me or to most of the Mormons who still post here. And if we tell you that a source isn't considered to be credible, it's because we've dealt with that source in the past, sometimes personally.

 

[Ironhold]

In fact, consider this a bit of recommended reading:

Mormon Apologetic Scholarship and Evangelical Neglect

In 1997, Carl Mosser and Paul Owen, both of whom were graduate theology students, decided to do their paper on the difference between pro-Mormon and anti-Mormon literature.

What they found during their survey was that while the pro-Mormon literature was slowly getting better as more people gained more experience and competency in the relevant fields, anti-Mormon literature was slowly devolving into people quoting other hostile works, adding their own personal spin, and calling it a day. They ultimately declared that most, if not all, of the arguments in use among anti-Mormon literature back then were useless as they had been either answered or tabled.

Their report is old enough to drink now, and nothing has changed.

 

[mmksparbud]

For you to say that there is "zero" tells me that you're decades behind on your archaeology.

Entire books have been written noting various discoveries and questioning whether or not they sync up to anything.

Want a quick primer? Here's a page from an apologetics website: Book of Mormon Evidences, Part One: Not Proof, But Indications of Plausibility .

So much has been uncovered that even The Smithsonian was forced to back down on the issue: Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon .

Even the cataclysms that took place in the Book of Mormon lands is plausible, as the descriptions are consistent with radical geologic upheaval and Central America is a mess of tectonic activity due to all of the plates colliding there. Plate tectonics - Wikipedia

Is there a non Mormon, peer reviewed archeological book or article written about Zarahemia?
(Actually---that sounds like some sort of medical condition!!--really!)

 

[Ironhold]

Is there a non Mormon, peer reviewed archeological book or article written about Zarahemia?
(Actually---that sounds like some sort of medical condition!!--really!)

Right now, it's a bit of a vicious cycle.

Archaeology in regards to Mesoamerica is a hot mess. It doesn't get a tenth of the attention that the Middle East gets, and the conquistadors did a pretty thorough job of trashing what historical materials they could find so those are out as well.

When it comes to the issue of "is there evidence for the Book of Mormon", in light of the above it's mostly going to be Mormons and critics of the church focusing on everything. This makes the matter "fringe", and few mainstream experts are going to willingly get involved in something like that. But since so few mainstream experts are going to willingly get involved, they're inadvertently ensuring that it stays fringe.

So for right now, there aren't going to be a whole lot of third-party peer-reviewed materials either for or against. Just whatever gets published in sources that are aligned with whatever side of the dispute the author's on.

 

[mmksparbud]

OOOOPPPSSS---so sorry---I misread that---I thought it read Zarahemia---It's Zarahemla--it doesn't sound so medical now!

 

[Solomon Smith]

Entire books have been written noting various discoveries and questioning whether or not they sync up to anything.

Mother Goose was written as well. But fables aren’t facts.

 

[dzheremi]

Of course it doesn't exist. Just like "Reformed Egyptian" doesn't exist, the Lamanites and Jaredites and so on didn't exist, etc. The BOM is a work of fiction, through and through.

And I don't know what Ironhold's being online since 2000 has to do with anything. I was online then, too, and Zarahemla didn't exist then, either.

 

[Solomon Smith]

For you to say that there is "zero" tells me that you're decades behind on your archaeology.

Entire books have been written noting various discoveries and questioning whether or not they sync up to anything.

Want a quick primer? Here's a page from an apologetics website: Book of Mormon Evidences, Part One: Not Proof, But Indications of Plausibility .

So much has been uncovered that even The Smithsonian was forced to back down on the issue: Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon .

Even the cataclysms that took place in the Book of Mormon lands is plausible, as the descriptions are consistent with radical geologic upheaval and Central America is a mess of tectonic activity due to all of the plates colliding there. Plate tectonics - Wikipedia

This is a quote from your link:

The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.

 

[Ironhold]

This is a quote from your link:

The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.

Did you read the whole list of arguments they made in a previous letter, arguments that they had to retract?

 

[Ironhold]

You make that claim about every source your opponents use. I think the one who isn’t credible is you.

...Because, quite frankly, the Christian counter-cult movement has a *massive* problem with vetting people and their arguments. Anyone who says that they have some "new" bit against such-and-such group is automatically given a star platform, only for wailing and gnashing of teeth later when this person goes down in flames.

Some people, like Alberto Rivera and Martha Beck, had their claims so spectacularly destroyed that non-Mormon sources and even mainstream sources commented on them.

Yes, Writer's Digest brought up Martha Beck in an op/ed alongside James Frey, Frank McCourt, and others whose "memoirs" fell apart under closer scrutiny.

What "Based on a True Story" Means | WritersDigest.com -> This is the link, but I think I still have the actual issue this was printed in.

Did you read the link I posted with the Mosser-Owen Report?

 

[dzheremi]

Jeff Lindsay is a moron. You can't quote an LDS apologist like Daniel C. Peterson as though his hemming and hawing about what Reformed Egyptian might have been is evidence of anything.

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THE BOOK OF MORMON ANYWHERE, IN ANY FIELD.

Sorry to yell, but the fact that you've got an entire propaganda machine pumping out these scientifically-dubious, LDS-backing pieces of pseudo-academic trash that then get cited by amateur LDS apologists like Lindsay kinda ticks me off. Peterson should know better, since he took the time to get an actual degree from a non-LDS institution, but as usual ideology and fidelity to the narrative trumps actual fact or fidelity to scientific rigor when it comes to Mormon 'scholars' writing on Mormon topics. It's sickening.

 

[Solomon Smith]

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE FOR THE BOOK OF MORMON ANYWHERE, IN ANY FIELD.

Exactly, the BOM is a fable. It’s a work of fiction.

 

[mmksparbud]

For you to say that there is "zero" tells me that you're decades behind on your archaeology.

Entire books have been written noting various discoveries and questioning whether or not they sync up to anything.

Want a quick primer? Here's a page from an apologetics website: Book of Mormon Evidences, Part One: Not Proof, But Indications of Plausibility .

So much has been uncovered that even The Smithsonian was forced to back down on the issue: Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon .

Even the cataclysms that took place in the Book of Mormon lands is plausible, as the descriptions are consistent with radical geologic upheaval and Central America is a mess of tectonic activity due to all of the plates colliding there. Plate tectonics - Wikipedia

Because the Smithsonian regards the unauthorized use of its name to disseminate inaccurate information as unlawful, we would appreciate your assistance in providing us with the names of any individuals who are misusing the Smithsonian's name. Please address any correspondence to:

• 
  Public Information Officer
  Department of Anthropology
  National Museum of Natural History
  Smithsonian Institution
  Washington, DC 20560
  

PREPARED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION





STATEMENT REGARDING THE BOOK OF MORMON



1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archeologists see no direct connection between the archeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.

2. The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia. Archeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians came into the New World--probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age--in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.

3. Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.

4. One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time when the early big game hunters spread across the Americas.)



SIL-76
1988



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5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron.

6. There is a possibility that the spread of cultural traits across the Pacific to Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began several hundred years before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric contacts appear to have been the results of accidental voyages originating in eastern and southern Asia. It is by no means certain that even such contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asian and the Near East.

7. No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archeology, and no expert on New World prehistory, has discovered or confirmed any relationship between archeological remains in Mexico and archeological remains in Egypt.

8. Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to hare occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland.

 

[Peter1000]

There is zero archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. Zarahemla did not exist.

For you to make such a statement, tells me you are totally ignorant of Central, and South and North American archaeology. And even if there is limited archaeological evidence, the Holy Spirit has told me that the BOM is true. If I can now see any evidence that backs up my spiritual knowledge, that is just icing on the cake, but if little icing, I still love the cake.

 

[dzheremi]

For you to make such a statement, tells me you are totally ignorant of Central, and South and North American archaeology.

Please cite your sources. Dispassionate/non-faith based sources only, please. (No BYU/FARMS stuff, since that is not actually academic, as it is vetted according to religious ideology.)

And even if there is limited archaeological evidence, the Holy Spirit has told me that the BOM is true.

Okay. The Holy Spirit tells me and literally every other non-Mormon Christian on the planet that the BOM is false, and Mormonism is false.

What now? Whose 'Holy Spirit' wins out?

If I can now see any evidence that backs up my spiritual knowledge, that is just icing on the cake, but if little icing, I still love the cake.

But if your cake is actually a mud pie that your leaders merely tell you is cake, would you be able to realize/admit it? Or is that something that your 'Holy Spirit' would definitely not testify to?

If the answer is that this is an impossibility, then it may benefit you to step away from the fruitless search for evidence of the BOM and ask yourself sincerely if you are constraining the Holy Spirit so as to put Him to work for your religious organization, because that's exactly what it would seem like in that case.

 

[Ironhold]

Please cite your sources. Dispassionate/non-faith based sources only, please. (No BYU/FARMS stuff, since that is not actually academic, as it is vetted according to religious ideology.)

Already explained why the bulk of relevant material is going to be pro-LDS, since they're the ones doing the bulk of the relevant grunt work of both original research and cataloging third-party work.

 

[dzheremi]

The problem is not the confessional identities of the persons doing the research in and of themselves, but the boundaries of the research itself, in that it is beholden to a religious narrative.

During my undergraduate days, I had some advisers and professors who were Protestants, one who was Bulgarian Orthodox, others who were atheists, etc. My Bulgarian Orthodox professor was not prevented by her confession from teaching us Lithuanian. It truly wouldn't have mattered if she or any other professor of any other background would've taught the material, because the material itself was not amenable to confessionally-based manipulation -- i.e., Lithuanian works the same whether it is spoken by this type or person that type. Similarly, another adviser's atheism did not prevent him from studying, describing, and publishing on comparative Cariban morphosyntax. His research is not connected to his (lack of) faith. He is not bound by what the religious narrative of a book says.

Is any of this true with regard to Mormon researchers? No. It isn't. They are bound by their religious narrative, since it's in fact the only reason they are doing what they are doing. The only reason they are the ones doing most of the 'research' is because they are the only ones out there trying to manipulate perfectly good academic disciplines like archaeology, linguistics, and so on in order to prove the scientific validity of the Book of Mormon. That's an inherently unscientific pursuit, as the BOM is not a scientific manual of any kind, and is not presumed to be true by anyone outside of the Mormon fold. Modern science does not begin with "I'm going to prove my religious scripture correct", because the essence of postulating a scientific claim is that it be falsifiable, and believing Mormons by virtue of their being believing Mormons do not allow for that with regard to the BOM (the BOM cannot be false, because the religious narrative demands that it not be). If they did, they would have packed it up a long time ago, in acknowledgment of there being no evidence for anything they claim.

You're not doing actual research. Quit trying to make it seem like you are.

 

[mmksparbud]

For you to make such a statement, tells me you are totally ignorant of Central, and South and North American archaeology. And even if there is limited archaeological evidence, the Holy Spirit has told me that the BOM is true. If I can now see any evidence that backs up my spiritual knowledge, that is just icing on the cake, but if little icing, I still love the cake.

And that is the problem with putting feeling above a "it is written"---feelings can be manipulated, by Satan, and by our own inclinations.