Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Mormon Religion Message-ID: Date: 12 Aug 90 08:19:42 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 231 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article cms@dragon.uucp writes: > The Mormon religion has never been accepted by any Christian council of >churches including: National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of >Christian Churches, Word Council of Churches, American & International Council >of Churches, among others. Is this supposed to be some sort of condemnation? [I will try to deal with each subject in your lead paragraph but to do so I have to split it up quite a bit.] > One of the major problems with the validity of the Book of Mormon is its >contention that two great civilizations once flourished on the American >continent; it describes buildings, machinery, shipping and shipbuilding, ^^^^^^^^^??? >temples, synagogues, and even a city whose inhabitants sank in the ocean, like >Atlantis. The archaeological evidence does not support these contentions. The BoM does not give a great deal of geographic information about the Americas, but the most likely site for it is Mesoamerica, the area from about Mexico City southward to near or a little beyond the Yucatan peninsula. Are you claiming that great civilizations are not consistent with archeology in that region? Check out the Olmecs and the Mayas. > The >Smithsonian Institution has indicated that no contacts with Egyptian, Hebrew, >or other peoples of Western Asia or the Near East occurred among American >Indian cultures. What really happened is that an "urban ledgend" sprung up that the Smithsonian was using the BoM as a guide to find archeological sites. People started writing the Smithsonian to ask if it was true so they put together a canned response. I've read it (quite a while ago) and it shows a lack of knowledge as to what the BoM says. This statement should be taken for what it is - a researcher's irritated response to the interruption of his work to answer the same silly question over and over. It hardly proves that no such contact existed. > Furthermore, the American Indian is basically Mongoloid (more >closely related to eastern, central, and northeastern Asia). Present >archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of American Indians >migrated across a land-bridge in the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age >around 30,000 years ago. The Book of Mormon indicates that the first of the >two great civilizations it describes left the Tower of Babel about 2,250 B.C. >whereas the second group left around 600 B.C. You seem to think that all the ancestors of Native Americans came from the same source at the same time. I think modern anthropology would reject this claim, allowing multiple immigrations. The BoM leaves plenty of room for other inhabitants in the Americas beyond those it describes and even gives some hints of contact with other groups. There is simply no conflict here. BTW, the Smithsonian paper does not even reflect the beliefs of their own researchers. Their point 3 (at least in the 1979 version) is that the first contact by sea with the Americas was the Norse in 1000 AD. Betty Meggers of that same institution traces the Olmec culture to sea-bourne connection from China around 1200 BC (_American Anthropologist_ 77, 1-27). The idea that Native Americans are of pure Mongoloid ancestry also does not stand up to modern science. Blood grouping and other evidence is simply not consistent with the old theory. See for example: "?Son los Amerindios up grupo biologicamente homogeneo?" _Cuadernos Americanos_ 152 (May-June 1967) p117-125 G. Albin Matson, et al, "Distribution of hereditary blood groups among Indians of South America. IV. In Chile," _American Journal of Physical Anthropology_ 27 (1967):188 Harold Gladwin, _Men our of Asia_ New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947, pp 63-65 If you want a good (if now a bit dated) summary try the book, _Man Across the Sea. Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts_ Ed. C.L. Riley, J.C. Kelley, C.W. Pennington, and R.L. Rands, Austin, Univ. of Texas Press, 1971. > the elephants described in Ether 9:19 never >existed in North America, See Ludwell H. Johnson, "Men and Elephants in America" _Scientific Monthly_ Oct 1952, pp215-221 > metals supposedly made and used by these >civilizations have never turned up. What about all that gold Cortez and Pizzaro were after? Of course the conventional wisdom used to be that metal began to be used in America around 900 AD. However, recent discoveries have pushed this back to at least before the time of Christ. A good set of references to this and other archeological BoM questions can be found in John L Sorenson's article in the _Ensign_, Sep 1984 (pp27-37) and Oct 1984 (pp13-23). The magazine is put out by the LDS church but the references are mostly to standard scholarly publications. If you want to check it out and can't find it in your local library, try the meetinghouse library in any LDS church. > Archaeologically, the Book of Mormon is a >flop. No, it actually comes off pretty good if you avoid a bunch of unwarrented assumptions and look at more recent archeological discoveries. In fact while I know of many recent discoveries which agree with the BoM where previous belief was contrary, I do not know of any which have cast new doubts on the book since its publication. During the 160 years since its publication the scholarly picture has been moving toward the BoM picture. > Also, Mormon theology consistently indicates that the American Indians are >descendants of the Lamanites, who are supposed to have been Semitic, in fact >Jewish. American Indians are Mongoloid and not of Mediterranean extraction. See the references above. Well, maybe I'll add one more since this particular researcher believes he sees evidence of a Western Mediterranean features in some of the native inhabitants of Mexico: Andrzej Wiercinski, "Inter- and Intrapopulational racial differentiation of Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas, Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, and Yucatan Maya," _Actas, Documentos, y Memorias, 36a Contreso Internacional de Americanistas_, Lima, 1970 [Long BoM quotes deleted. I think these were intended to show that the BoM people came from Palestine. This point was never in dispute.] > I should note here that I am quoting from a pre-1973 version of the Book of >Mormon. Since that time, I understand it has undergone revisions, that is, >"corrections." Right. One of the original handwritten manuscripts became available and was used to correct printer's errors which had occurred. A complete list of these changes was published in the _Ensign_ about the time this new edition became available although I don't have the exact date. Probably sometime in 1973. > The three witnesses at the front of the Book of Mormon, the ones who witnessed >that they actually saw the plates and the angel which brought them, later said >they saw them with the "eyes of faith." All three of these witnesses later >apostosized from the Mormon faith and were described as thieves and >counterfeiters by Mormon contemporaries. The very witnesses to the validity of >the Book of Mormon are thus described by the Mormons themselves as unreliable. In spite of this they never denied their testimonies, printed to this day in the front of the BoM. Two of them in fact returned to the church. It seems to me that a man who argues with someone he has been a witness for but still remains faithful to that witness in spite of the "falling out" is more to be believed than one who is witness only for his friends. I think the reference to "eyes of faith" is to the requirement that they had to have faith before they could be shown the plates. There is no indication that they did not really see the angel and the plates. Their testimony mentions that they saw them by the power of God. There were another 8 witnesses who saw the plates but not (apparently) the angel. They mention actually handling the plates with their hands. These men also never denied their testimony, also found in the front of the book. > The Book of Mormon has more than 25,000 words quoted from the King James >Bible. The Mormons say that Nephi must have brought the Hebrew Bible with him >and this accounts for the quotations from the Old Testament. It stretches the >limits of credulity to believe that the translations of the inscribed plates >came out in King James English without variation more than 1000 years before >the 1611 Authorized Version was written. And what does that do to New Testament quotations of the Septuigent version of the Old Testament? Scripture quotes older scripture and any translator will naturally go the translation of the original source. Of course there are differences and it is instructive to compare the differences between the Isaiah quotations in the BoM and the KJV with some of the Isaiah material from Qumran. If anybody's interested I can tell you how to get a paper doing just that. > I can't go on. Anyone can see why I refuse to accept, and all legitimate >Christian churches refuse to accept, the Book of Mormon as a valid testimony of >Jesus Christ, and why secular scholars refuse to accept the Book of Mormon >as having any basis in fact. At least Biblical stories have archaeological >evidence to back them up, whereas the Book of Mormon has none. You have presented a very one-sided picture. If you listen only to one side of any story you are likely to be deceived. Would you judge the Catholic faith based only on what Joe Applegate says about it? > As a work of fiction, the Book of Mormon is a masterpiece; I commend its >probable author Solomon Spaulding, who wrote a work called "Manuscript Story," >which was probably later changed and expanded into "Manuscript Found." None of >the anti-Mormonists who discovered "Manuscript Story" believed it was the >manuscript upon which the Book of Mormon was based; rather, they believe that >Spaulding, a retired minister, wrote a later version of his story, as yet >undiscovered, upon which Joseph Smith plagiaristically based his Book of >Mormon. Even so, "Manuscript Story" contains "at least 75 similarities to what >is now the Book of Mormon and this is not to be easily explained away." Please list some of these 75 similarities. Having seen both works I see no reason to believe that there is any connection beyond both comming from New England in about the same time frame. Martin is really stretching things here. Note: The "Spaulding theory" goes back to early attempts to explain away the Book of Mormon. It didn't seem reasonable that someone with Joseph Smith's background could write it so people started looking for other explainations. The favorite was that Joseph has somehow acquired a manuscript written by Solomon Spaulding and used it as the basis for the BoM. This got a bit fanciful, including crediting Sydney Rigdon with adding the religious parts (even though there is no evidence that Rigdon ever met Joseph Smith until well after the BoM publication). Since the Spaulding manuscript had dissappeared there was no way to compare the 2. Then Spaulding's work had the audacity to show up and it became obvious that it could not be the basis for the BoM. It's supporters then decided there must be a second Spaulding work (which of course is still missing) and that must be the real source. I see no justification for this except that these people can't find any explaination they like better.