The Book of Mormon and the Ancient Evidence

[dberrie2020]

I found this article on the web page:


The Book of Mormon and the Ancient Evidence---

The Book of Mormon and the Ancient Evidence - Apologetics Press

Mormonism began in 1820, when Joseph Smith, Jr. purportedly received a vision of two heavenly beings claiming that all churches had become corrupted and that their creeds were abominations. Smith’s divinely ordained duty was to restore the one true church. He claimed three years later an angel...

apologeticspress.org

DEWAYNE BRYANT, Ph.D.

"Smith once called the Book of Mormon “the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion” (Smith, 1902, 4:461). In the introduction of the Book of Mormon, Smith states that it is “the record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas,” which also contains “the fullness of the everlasting gospel.” Any religion centered on a scriptural foundation stands or falls on the accuracy of its sacred text. While the Bible has a wealth of evidence supporting its historical, chronological, and geographical accuracy, the Book of Mormon has been heavily criticized for its inaccuracies. Is the Book of Mormon divine revelation, or is it simply the invention of a gifted storyteller?

One of the problems that plagues the Mormon scriptures is the anachronistic portrayal of various animals in the New World. The most problematic is the portrayal of horses in the Americas in the Book of Mormon, where they appear frequently prior to the age of exploration (1 Nephi 18:25, et al.). Anthropologists are in near-universal agreement that horses had become extinct in the Americas until European explorers reintroduced them to the continent. Scientists have found evidence of horses in the Americas prior to and after the period of time covered by the Book of Mormon, but not during. In addition to a lack of fossil evidence, Bruce MacFaden says, “Their extinction is…suggested by the fact that no horses are known to have been depicted in pre-Columbian art…. Horses were reintroduced into the New World by the Spanish explorers during the sixteenth century” (MacFaden, 1992, p. 3). Janey Dohner notes that the horse was reintroduced to North America by Columbus on his second voyage, while Hernando de Soto reintroduced them to South America in 1539 (Dohner, 2001, p. 313).

Mormon author Diane Wirth dismisses this criticism and points to what she considers evidence of the presence of horses, although her best examples consist of a handful of poorly executed relief carvings and petroglyphs (Wirth, 1986, pp. 52-55). Wirth defends her point by drawing a parallel between the lack of evidence, particularly bone evidence, of horses in the Americas with the lack of evidence of lions in Palestine. She notes: “Today there are no so-called archaeological remains of lions in the land of Israel. Apparently not a bone has been left. Therefore, a lack of skeletal remains of an animal in a particular area does not necessarily mean that the animal was never there” (p. 56). Wirth is correct. If one were to rely purely on skeletal evidence, the existence of lions in Palestine would be nearly impossible to prove. But archaeologists have also discovered numerous reliefs depicting kings hunting lions, lion-shaped artifacts, and numerous references to lions in ancient texts. There is a wealth of evidence attesting to the existence of lions in ancient Israel. There is absolutely no parallel for the existence of horses in America prior to European exploration. This is not to say that the Book of Mormon is wrong because of a lack of evidence–which would be an argument from silence. Rather, it is simply to note that there is an inexplicable lack of evidence where it would be reasonably expected."

 

[dberrie2020]

Since it's a long post--I thought I would answer it in a separate post.

I was wondering--had Dr Bryant any access to this article?


When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Horses There?

When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Horses There?

The Know When Lehi and his family arrived in the promised land, according to Nephi’s account, they found “beasts in the forests of every kind, … the ass and the horse, … and all manner of wild animals” (1 Nephi 18:25). The inclusion of horses in the Book of Mormon is a subject that has long...

knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org

Post contributed by Scripture Central---October 17, 2022

The Know

When Lehi and his family arrived in the promised land, according to Nephi’s account, they found “beasts in the forests of every kind, … the ass and the horse, … and all manner of wild animals” (1 Nephi 18:25). The inclusion of horses in the Book of Mormon is a subject that has long perplexed many readers since conventional thinking among scientists maintains that horses went extinct in the Americas around the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 10,000 BC). Some have used this apparent discrepancy to try to discredit the Book of Mormon. Others, however, have argued that various possibilities could account for it.

While these remain important possibilities to consider, a recent study published in the Texas Journal of Science indicates that horses may have been in the Americas during Book of Mormon times after all. An international team of scholars—including experts in geology, biology, paleontology, and archaeozoology—recovered specimens of horse and other megafauna from a stratified context at Rancho Carabanchel, near Cedral, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. To establish the chronology of the site, several radiocarbon dates were obtained at each layer of strata from charcoal and other organic material recovered during excavations. Importantly, several horse specimens were recovered in close association with materials carbon dated to Book of Mormon times (see table).

Post-Pleistocene, Pre-Columbian Dates Associated with Horse Remains at Rancho Carabanchel, San Luis Potosí, Mexico (see Miller et al. 2022, table 1)
Uncalibrated Radiocarbon Dates​	Calibrated Radiocarbon Dates​
Years BP*​	Years in BC/AD​	Years BP*​	Years in BC/AD​
3310±30​	1390–1330 BC​	3610–3458​	1660–1508 BC​
3220±30​	1300–1240 BC​	3494–3374​	1544–1424 BC​
2410±30​	490–430 BC​	2498–2350​	548–400 BC​
1870±30​	50–110 AD​	1877–1724​	73–226 AD​
1840±30​	80–140 AD​	1864–1708​	86–242 AD​
1647±57​	247–360 AD​	1697–1408​	253–542 AD​
930±30​	990–1050 AD​	925–785​	1025–1165 AD​
*BP = “before present,” with the “present” standardized to 1950.

Based on the researchers’ analysis of the recovered horse specimens, all the samples from pre-Columbian, post-Pleistocene (Ice Age) contexts belong to either Equus mexicanus or Equus conversidens, both now extinct North American horse species. This rules out the possibility that these were actually Spanish horse bones that somehow contaminated the lower strata of the site.

Fig. 3 in Miller et al. 2022, showing the stratigraphy and location of horse bones and radiocarbon dated material at Rancho Carabanchel​

The authors of the study concluded: “The remains of Equus that we recovered from RC [Rancho Carabanchel] from multiple stratigraphic layers all with associated radiocarbon dates, all in a fair stratigraphic continuum (Fig. 3), and showing no mixing between geological units imply that horses may have persisted in this region of México well after the classical late Pleistocene extinction time.”

Although this is incongruous with the commonly assumed date for the extinction of the horse in America, it is consistent with the traditions of several Indigenous groups which insist that their people had horses before the Spanish arrived. It is also part of a growing body of evidence that suggests that at least some pockets of horses survived for several millennia after the end of the last Ice Age. For instance, studies of ancient DNA samples from Alaska and the Yukon found horse DNA in permafrost layers from between 8600–5700 BC and 3700 BC, respectively. Further south, some horses in Brazil and Argentina apparently survived as late as 5000 BC.

In Mesoamerica, scholars have long been perplexed by horse bones found in conjunction with ceramics in northern Yucatan. Charcoal found in association with some of these horse specimens was radiocarbon dated to ca. 1840 BC, and additional horse remains were found in later pre-Columbian strata. In the past, scholars have raised questions about the stratigraphy of the site, but recently one pair of archaeologists concluded that the possibility that the horse “survived into the Late Archaic or even Early Preclassic” should be taken more seriously: “Since the horse also survived into post-Pleistocene times in the Old World, the possibility of its survival into Archaic times in the American tropics may also need to be considered.” The most recent findings reported from Mexico further reinforce that possibility.

The Why

Establishing the survival of horse populations in the Americas well beyond the last Ice Age has major implications that would reverberate across several disciplines engaged in the study of pre-Columbian American history, “creating a paradigm shift,” as the authors of this latest study have acknowledged. Whether this latest evidence will bring about such a shift is yet to be seen, but the scientists who published it have urged others to treat the possibility “as a developing hypothesis, which is testable rather than just avoided.”

Although the issue is not yet definitively settled, the potential implications of these latest findings on how we read and interpret references to horses and other animals in the Book of Mormon are very much worth considering. In this light, it is particularly interesting to compare these latest findings to the dating of various Book of Mormon references to horses.

Two of the radiocarbon dates found near horse remains came from the mid-second millennium BC, thereby supporting the reference to horses during Jaredite times in Ether 9:19. Another dates to the sixth or fifth century BC, which is chronologically close to Lehi’s arrival in the promised land, when Nephi said he saw horses there (1 Nephi 18:25), and to Enos’ time when the Nephites had “many horses” (Enos 1:21). The final mention of horses in the Book of Mormon comes during the Gadianton siege in the first century AD (3 Nephi 3:22; 4:4; 6:1), and two radiocarbon dates support the presence of horses around this time as well. Thus, if these findings are valid, they support the existence of horses in all periods the Book of Mormon mentions them in.

Additionally, it may be significant that two different types of Equus species were found in strata dating to Book of Mormon times since the Book of Mormon also mentions the ass (donkey), which is likewise a member of the so-called horse family (Equidae). Since the E. coversidens is a small- to medium-sized horse, perhaps it is what the Jaredites and Nephites referred to as an ass, while the larger E. mexicanus was their horse. The findings at Rancho Carabanchel may therefore help account for not one, but two animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

As scientists and scholars continue to explore and debate this issue, students of the Book of Mormon should remain open to various explanations for references to horses and other Old World animals mentioned in Jaredite and Nephite records. These recent findings once again illustrate why it is important to remain patient and open-minded as archaeology continues to unfold the past rather than jump to hasty conclusions based on a mere lack of evidence. The potential discovery of pre-Columbian horses during Book of Mormon times is but a single data point in a much larger trend toward confirming things once thought to be anachronous in the Book of Mormon.

“In scholarship as in science,” Hugh Nibley once observed, “every paradox and anomaly is really a broad hint that new knowledge is awaiting us if we will only go after it.” Those who have had the patience to approach the Book of Mormon’s reference to horses as just such a broad hint are now enjoying new knowledge that may be on the verge of rewriting the history of the Americas.

 

[Markk]

I think the first observation should be...where did Lehi's party arrive? please provide where they landed and started their settlement/s? Then we can work backwards from there. Please provide evidence for your answer.?

 

[Elijah the Tishbite]

Ham

See CAIN, EGYPTUS, NEGROES, PRE-EXISTENCE, PRIESTHOOD. Through Ham (a name meaning black) "the blood of the Canaanites was preserved" through the flood, he having married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain. (Abra. 1:20-27.) Ham was cursed, apparently for marrying into the forbidden lineage, and the effects of the curse passed to his son, Canaan. (Gen. 9:25.) Ham's descendants include the Negroes, who originally were barred from holding the priesthood but have been able to do

 

[dberrie2020]

I think the first observation should be...where did Lehi's party arrive? please provide where they landed and started their settlement/s? Then we can work backwards from there. Please provide evidence for your answer.?

I was thinking the first observation would be the OP, and I don't find anything in your reply which would connect us with that.

Think horses, Markk. Horses in Book of Mormon eras.

 

[dberrie2020]

Ham

See CAIN, EGYPTUS, NEGROES, PRE-EXISTENCE, PRIESTHOOD. Through Ham (a name meaning black) "the blood of the Canaanites was preserved" through the flood, he having married Egyptus, a descendant of Cain. (Abra. 1:20-27.) Ham was cursed, apparently for marrying into the forbidden lineage, and the effects of the curse passed to his son, Canaan. (Gen. 9:25.) Ham's descendants include the Negroes, who originally were barred from holding the priesthood but have been able to do

Could you explain how you are relating any of this to the OP?

You and Markk might want to track the presence of horses during the Book of Mormon eras point, if you are going to engage the OP.

 

[Markk]

I was thinking the first observation would be the OP, and I don't find anything in your reply which would connect us with that.

Think horses, Markk. Horses in Book of Mormon eras.

I am discussion the OP. You again in your attempt to prove the BoM, and your God complex, made an erroneous statement that any evidence of ancient horses, somehow support the BoM. So obviously the first this you must do, is show that there is any evidence for the BoM to be a valid and reliable narrative of a real people. Were there any Hebrew civilizations found in around and ancient horse bones? Were there Synagogues and Temples? How about great harbors and a shipping industry?

Again, this is another attempt, in vain, to somehow show you hope that that the church is true, and it is all the means to the end that you can find inter hope with the God complex the church forces on you.

The Know...When Lehi and his family arrived in the promised land

this is in your OP...so o where did Lehi land? So, if you know this, where is the place that Lehi landed? After all with all the Gods in the church, who receive daily personal revelation, you can support your OP...correct?

 

[dberrie2020]

I am discussion the OP. You again in your attempt to prove the BoM, and your God complex, made an erroneous statement that any evidence of ancient horses, somehow support the BoM.

LOL!!! Markk--if horses did indeed exist during Book of Mormon times, or the timeframe of the Jaredites--then yes--it supports the Book of Mormon claims there were horses during that time frame. That's obvious.

As the article shows--since there were not only horse bones discovered--but different types of horse species found--it could account for both the donkey and the horse--both of which was claimed in the Book of Mormon to be present during that time.

Again--that flies in the face of the article critical of the Book of Mormon, IE--

"This is not to say that the Book of Mormon is wrong because of a lack of evidence–which would be an argument from silence. Rather, it is simply to note that there is an inexplicable lack of evidence where it would be reasonably expected."

Well--the evidence is there now.

Care to address that?

 

[brotherofJared]

I think the first observation should be...where did Lehi's party arrive?

Not where, when.

please provide where they landed and started their settlement/s?

It's your argument. Please provide it.

Then we can work backwards from there.

Why are we supposed to do your work?

 

[brotherofJared]

this is in your OP...so o where did Lehi land?

Why don't you tell us where and then why that is even remotely applicable to the current topic.

 

[dberrie2020]

Why don't you tell us where and then why that is even remotely applicable to the current topic.

It's a diversion by Markk--and that's obvious, IMO.

You are right--it's both WHEN and where which is applicable to the OP--and matching that time period with the period of the horses discovered in the strata--which occurs on the American continent. The WHERE is already established--we don't need to rehash that, as the article identifies the specific location.

Those discovered horses might defy the cry of the critics, IE-- of horses not being found upon the continent during the Book of Mormon timeframe.

And more--horses being present during the timeframe of both the Jaredites and the Nephites. And more yet--different horse species which might account for the Book of Mormon claim of both the horse and the donkey(ass).

IMO--the bricks keep falling from the wall, and when the bricks of folly fall, let me be found beneath it's wall.

 

[dberrie2020]

Since it's a long post--I thought I would answer it in a separate post.

I was wondering--had Dr Bryant any access to this article?


"When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Horses There?

When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Horses There?
The Know When Lehi and his family arrived in the promised land, according to Nephi’s account, they found “beasts in the forests of every kind, … the ass and the horse, … and all manner of wild animals” (1 Nephi 18:25). The inclusion of horses in the Book of Mormon is a subject that has long...

Post contributed by Scripture Central---October 17, 2022

The Know

When Lehi and his family arrived in the promised land, according to Nephi’s account, they found “beasts in the forests of every kind, … the ass and the horse, … and all manner of wild animals” (1 Nephi 18:25). The inclusion of horses in the Book of Mormon is a subject that has long perplexed many readers since conventional thinking among scientists maintains that horses went extinct in the Americas around the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 10,000 BC). Some have used this apparent discrepancy to try to discredit the Book of Mormon. Others, however, have argued that various possibilities could account for it.

While these remain important possibilities to consider, a recent study published in the Texas Journal of Science indicates that horses may have been in the Americas during Book of Mormon times after all. An international team of scholars—including experts in geology, biology, paleontology, and archaeozoology—recovered specimens of horse and other megafauna from a stratified context at Rancho Carabanchel, near Cedral, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. To establish the chronology of the site, several radiocarbon dates were obtained at each layer of strata from charcoal and other organic material recovered during excavations. Importantly, several horse specimens were recovered in close association with materials carbon dated to Book of Mormon times (see table).

Post-Pleistocene, Pre-Columbian Dates Associated with Horse Remains at Rancho Carabanchel, San Luis Potosí, Mexico (see Miller et al. 2022, table 1)
Uncalibrated Radiocarbon Dates	Calibrated Radiocarbon Dates
Years BP*	Years in BC/AD	Years BP*	Years in BC/AD
3310±30	1390–1330 BC	3610–3458	1660–1508 BC
3220±30	1300–1240 BC	3494–3374	1544–1424 BC
2410±30	490–430 BC	2498–2350	548–400 BC
1870±30	50–110 AD	1877–1724	73–226 AD
1840±30	80–140 AD	1864–1708	86–242 AD
1647±57	247–360 AD	1697–1408	253–542 AD
930±30	990–1050 AD	925–785	1025–1165 AD
*BP = “before present,” with the “present” standardized to 1950.

Based on the researchers’ analysis of the recovered horse specimens, all the samples from pre-Columbian, post-Pleistocene (Ice Age) contexts belong to either Equus mexicanus or Equus conversidens, both now extinct North American horse species. This rules out the possibility that these were actually Spanish horse bones that somehow contaminated the lower strata of the site.


Fig. 3 in Miller et al. 2022, showing the stratigraphy and location of horse bones and radiocarbon dated material at Rancho Carabanchel

The authors of the study concluded: “The remains of Equus that we recovered from RC [Rancho Carabanchel] from multiple stratigraphic layers all with associated radiocarbon dates, all in a fair stratigraphic continuum (Fig. 3), and showing no mixing between geological units imply that horses may have persisted in this region of México well after the classical late Pleistocene extinction time.”

Although this is incongruous with the commonly assumed date for the extinction of the horse in America, it is consistent with the traditions of several Indigenous groups which insist that their people had horses before the Spanish arrived. It is also part of a growing body of evidence that suggests that at least some pockets of horses survived for several millennia after the end of the last Ice Age. For instance, studies of ancient DNA samples from Alaska and the Yukon found horse DNA in permafrost layers from between 8600–5700 BC and 3700 BC, respectively. Further south, some horses in Brazil and Argentina apparently survived as late as 5000 BC.

In Mesoamerica, scholars have long been perplexed by horse bones found in conjunction with ceramics in northern Yucatan. Charcoal found in association with some of these horse specimens was radiocarbon dated to ca. 1840 BC, and additional horse remains were found in later pre-Columbian strata. In the past, scholars have raised questions about the stratigraphy of the site, but recently one pair of archaeologists concluded that the possibility that the horse “survived into the Late Archaic or even Early Preclassic” should be taken more seriously: “Since the horse also survived into post-Pleistocene times in the Old World, the possibility of its survival into Archaic times in the American tropics may also need to be considered.” The most recent findings reported from Mexico further reinforce that possibility.

The Why

Establishing the survival of horse populations in the Americas well beyond the last Ice Age has major implications that would reverberate across several disciplines engaged in the study of pre-Columbian American history, “creating a paradigm shift,” as the authors of this latest study have acknowledged. Whether this latest evidence will bring about such a shift is yet to be seen, but the scientists who published it have urged others to treat the possibility “as a developing hypothesis, which is testable rather than just avoided.”

Although the issue is not yet definitively settled, the potential implications of these latest findings on how we read and interpret references to horses and other animals in the Book of Mormon are very much worth considering. In this light, it is particularly interesting to compare these latest findings to the dating of various Book of Mormon references to horses.

Two of the radiocarbon dates found near horse remains came from the mid-second millennium BC, thereby supporting the reference to horses during Jaredite times in Ether 9:19. Another dates to the sixth or fifth century BC, which is chronologically close to Lehi’s arrival in the promised land, when Nephi said he saw horses there (1 Nephi 18:25), and to Enos’ time when the Nephites had “many horses” (Enos 1:21). The final mention of horses in the Book of Mormon comes during the Gadianton siege in the first century AD (3 Nephi 3:22; 4:4; 6:1), and two radiocarbon dates support the presence of horses around this time as well. Thus, if these findings are valid, they support the existence of horses in all periods the Book of Mormon mentions them in.

Additionally, it may be significant that two different types of Equus species were found in strata dating to Book of Mormon times since the Book of Mormon also mentions the ass (donkey), which is likewise a member of the so-called horse family (Equidae). Since the E. coversidens is a small- to medium-sized horse, perhaps it is what the Jaredites and Nephites referred to as an ass, while the larger E. mexicanus was their horse. The findings at Rancho Carabanchel may therefore help account for not one, but two animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

As scientists and scholars continue to explore and debate this issue, students of the Book of Mormon should remain open to various explanations for references to horses and other Old World animals mentioned in Jaredite and Nephite records. These recent findings once again illustrate why it is important to remain patient and open-minded as archaeology continues to unfold the past rather than jump to hasty conclusions based on a mere lack of evidence. The potential discovery of pre-Columbian horses during Book of Mormon times is but a single data point in a much larger trend toward confirming things once thought to be anachronous in the Book of Mormon.

“In scholarship as in science,” Hugh Nibley once observed, “every paradox and anomaly is really a broad hint that new knowledge is awaiting us if we will only go after it.” Those who have had the patience to approach the Book of Mormon’s reference to horses as just such a broad hint are now enjoying new knowledge that may be on the verge of rewriting the history of the Americas."

Anyone?