(For those not interested, I apologize for the very lengthy post.)
Craig, if you’re really interested in a discussion then let’s have a discussion. Please drop the inane sarcasm-only persona.
To make sure I’ve understood you correctly, and so I can address them systematically, let me state what your specific objections so far have been.
1. Metallurgy, specifically metal weaponry – You seem to believe that the Book of Mormon describes “lots of [metal] swords and [metal] shields from battles”, including “massive amounts of steel weaponry”. This massive amount of steel described in the Book of Mormon contradicts current archaeological thinking which only has found “sparse copper trinkets” in the Americas.
2. Horses – You seem to believe that horses could not have existed in the Book of Mormon time period of 2500 BC to 400 AD since it is widely accepted that horses died out in the Americas over 10,000 years ago.
3. DNA – You seem to believe that if the Book of Mormon were accurate, DNA science should have established a link between native Americans to ancient Jews.
4. Introduction – You seem to believe that if Bruce McConkie were a legitimate prophet/apostle then his words in the introduction to the Book of Mormon wouldn’t have needed to be changed.
Please let me know if I have not phrased your objections accurately.
My response:
Before I address the specific items, let me say that I do not believe for an instant that those four items are the reasons why you do not believe in LDSism. That’s what I was getting at with my first couple of questions that you never answered:
“If horses and metallurgy are found to have existed in the Americas in the Book of Mormon time period, would you become a believer?”
“If a DNA haplotype were to be found in the Americas that is known to exist particularly in Israel today, would you become a believer?”
If you are like others with whom I have had similar discussions, then almost certainly you formed a strong opinion against the Book of Mormon before you ran across those four items yourself. You are very likely in one of two camps: either (a) you do not believe in God at all, or (b) you believe strongly in some other religion. There’s a slight chance that you may fall into category (c): you used to be Mormon but then became disaffected for some reason… possibly due to items such as these, but almost certainly not. Of all the ex-Mormons I’ve talked to, I’ve only met a handful who claim to have lost faith due to items like these.
Assuming (a) or (b) is accurate, then you almost certainly started believing that Joseph Smith was a fraud first, and then started looking for items like these to justify your belief against Joseph Smith.
So, care to answer my questions about what it would take for you to become a believer? Or to elaborate a bit on your own background? Please correct me if I have not hit the nail on the head.
As stated, it’s my experience that items such as these four practically NEVER cause someone to disbelieve the Book of Mormon. Similarly, items such as the ones mentioned by Franklin and myself early in the thread – the word “deseret”, the discovery of a place called NHM in the right location relative to Jerusalem, the discovery of a place that matches the description of Bountiful in the right location relative to NHM, the Hebraic language structures, the discovery of names used in the Book of Mormon to be legitimate ancient Semite names, the testimony of witnesses of the plates, the testimony of witnesses to the translation process, and the manuscript evidence that the Book of Mormon was produced from an oral dictation – practically NEVER cause someone to believe the Book of Mormon.
Rather, if a person (such as yourself) already disbelieves the Book of Mormon, he will seize upon items like the four you presented as evidence of its incorrectness, and he will attempt to explain away the items like the several I presented; if a person (such as myself) already believes the Book of Mormon, then he will seize upon items like the ones I presented as evidence of its correctness, and will attempt to explain away items such as the four you presented. That’s why I said in my second post in the thread that, “If I didn't believe [already], I'm not sure which side I would consider to have the stronger evidence.” Even though I'm a professional scientist it’s very hard if not impossible for me to give a fair, unbiased weighting of the evidence. And I’m sure the same is equally true for you.
That being said, from my perspective the question is, “Is there a way to explain/understand the four items you brought up [and others like them] that makes sense with my underlying belief that the Book of Mormon is true?” The answer to that question is absolutely yes.
OK, so how do I view the four items that you brought up? Some of this I’ve already stated, but I’ll list my responses here for completeness.
1. Metals - The website link I provided earlier about metals in the Book of Mormon,
https://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Steel_in_the_Book_of_Mormon.html, shows that the belief you hold, that the Book of Mormon describes “massive amounts of steel weaponry” is very likely incorrect. Specifically, and significantly, there are no references to Nephite steel after 400 BC.
Quoting the article,
Putting all this together, we find the following:
• The steel sword is a Near Eastern weapon. It is imitated by Nephi in the first generation-although we are not sure if this imitation is of function, form or material-or all three.
• Steel swords are never again mentioned in the Book of Mormon after this first generation.
• Steel is mentioned once more, in 400 B.C., in a literary topos list, which is notable also for its failure to mention swords, steel or otherwise.
The minimalist and tightest reading of this evidence is that Nephi had a steel weapon from the Near East. He attempted to imitate this weapon-whether in function, form, or material is unclear. His descendants apparently abandoned this technology by no later than 400 B.C. Based on a careful reading of the text of the Book of Mormon, there are no grounds for claiming-as anti-Mormons repeatedly do-that the Book of Mormon describes a massive steel industry with thousands of soldiers carrying steel swords in the New World.
Thus there is no large disconnect between what is described in the Book of Mormon and what is described in your Wikipedia metallurgy article, that is: “People in the Americas have been using native metal from very early times, with recent finds of gold artifacts in the Andean region dated to 2155 - 1936 BC. and North American copper finds dated to approximately 5000 BC.”
2. Horses – Logic demands my view here must be either (a) horses existed in the Americas well after 8,000 BC (given that's the date it's generally felt that horses died out), or that (b) the animals described in the Book of Mormon, and called “horses” were not really horses. While I know that some apologists have gone with (b) (I assume that’s where your “tapir” comment came from), to me (a) seems perfectly possible.
To quote the “Archaeology and the Book of Mormon” Wikipedia article you cited, “There is no evidence that horses existed on the American continent during the 2500-3000 year history of the Book of Mormon (2500 BC - 400 AD).”
However, and this is key to what I was getting at in my response to LogGrad98 in post #30 of this thread:
Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. Scientists can’t say that there were no horses in 1000 BC, they can only say that “We don’t have compelling evidence of horses at that time.”
Did horse exist at that time? If the images and dates in the “Chapman Research” link I posted are correct (I don’t know), then there certainly is SOME evidence. This paper provides some additional evidence, specifically mentioning a 1977 dig that found horse bones mixed in with pottery fragments dating from 900-400 BC:
https://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=10&num=1&id=246. Perhaps there is not COMPELLING evidence yet that some horses survived well past 8,000 BC, but there is SOME evidence--and the nature of archaeology is such that people often end up reforming opinions when enough new evidence comes in.
If new evidence does come in, causing the scientific community to change their collective opinion about how long horses persisted in the Americas, will that change your mind about the Book of Mormon?
Before I leave this particular topic, is option (b) completely out? Not necessarily… it is clear from all of history that settlers often name things in the new land based on things they knew in the old land. So Nephi & company could very well have called something a horse that wasn’t part of Equus ferus caballus.
3. DNA – I’ve already given a fairly complete answer to this question in my response to LogGrad98. Basically, since I already believed that the Lehites were a small part of the overall population in the Americas, I would have been shocked if they HAD found DNA evidence of a substantial link between ancient Hebrews and Native Americans. As far as I know all DNA experts, both LDS and nonLDS, agree with me—that the DNA evidence shows the native Americans did not exclusively originate in the Middle East, but that it doesn’t say anything one way or another about whether a small group of Hebrews emigrated to the Americas and mingled with the people already there.
4. McConkie – This is such a trivial thing to me that I’m not going to write much of a reply. Suffice it to say I don’t feel like LDS prophets or apostles are infallible.
