Book of Mormon: true or false?

kmguru said:
In the mean time, the trade between India and China goes back thousands of years with a common border.
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tibet used to be a formatable kingdom, it stands between China & India, not saying no contact, because there was, just not a common border until recently
silk road for sure, Buddhism next

see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Silkroutes.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Buddhism

So, it is possible that the Native Americans could be the descendants of a group of Eurasians that moved on due to war.
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wouldn't their DNA stay eurasian? or do you mean mixed?
 
tibet used to be a formatable kingdom, it stands between China & India, not saying no contact, because there was, just not a common border until recently silk road for sure, Buddhism next
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It was around 1000 BC. But the people are of Chinese Origin. Indian, even presently has 3 groups of people - the Aryans with some caucasian features, the Dravidians with some African features and the Aborigins with some Chinese features.

It does not take a genius to figure out over a span of 60,000 years who went where. Anything north of the greater India is China in terms of the population features and hence my comment.

Somewhere I read, Common mtDNA found between people in Eastern Africa, India and Australia.

wouldn't their DNA stay eurasian? or do you mean mixed?
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Everything is mixed except the location where the races originated.
 
I think it's false, but i dont feel like debating it. That would require me to get one of the Morman bibles, studying it, and studying many other thoughts and beliefs. Also, nice job on thinking of such a great topic, and putting so much time into writting this.
 
Orleander said:
The book of Mormon is as true as the Bible.
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Actually, the BoM has a BIG PROBLEM, its historic, you can see the evolution of its leadership & core beliefs, there were trial transcripts, diaries, newspaper articles, shipping & steerage records & burial sites (with decomposing human bodies)

since BoM is the foundation stone on which JS jr.& the LDS based their claims upon, I'll shred it a little for easier digestion:
1. claims to be the history of the Americas circa 600 BC to 400 AD
2. just on DNA evidence, proves the BoM false
3. includes many anachronisms; horses, metal work, Old World ag
4. linguistics proves it wrong
5. archeology proves it wrong
6. claim to be the restored Primitive church of the early Christians, yet no evidence of ancient Mormon temples, rituals, liturgy, clergy, or wards uncovered here or in the Middle East
7. no evidence of Reformed Egyptian, the language of the BoM
++++7a. as a corollary, the translation of the "Book of Abraham" hieroglyphics from a papyri disproves JS jr's Egyptian translating abilities

It should be quite obvious that present scholarship has revealed that Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Abraham by the power of God as he had claimed. It follows that if he did not translate the Book of Abraham by the power of God, then it would be very easy to conclude that he did not translate the Book of Mormon by the power of God either.
When Joseph first gave his translation, hieroglyphics were undecipherable. Today they are. He was safe in saying anything he wanted to and there would be no way of proving him wrong. But with the resurfacing of the same papyri he used to do his Book of Abraham translation, and the fact that he did not in any way do it correctly, should be proof enough

from: http://www.carm.org/lds/ldspapyri.htm
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burial site
Joseph and Hyrum Smith's bodies were returned to Nauvoo the next day. The bodies were cleaned and examined, and death masks were made, preserving their facial features and structures.

A public viewing was held on 29 June 1844, after which empty coffins weighted with sandbags were used at the public burial. (This was done to prevent theft or mutilation of the bodies.) The actual coffins bearing the bodies of the Smith brothers were initially buried under the unfinished Nauvoo House, then disinterred and deeply reburied under an out-building on the Smith homestead. The exact location of the gravesite was soon lost to memory.

In 1928 Frederick M. Smith, president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and grandson of Joseph Smith, fearing that rising water from the Mississippi River would destroy the gravesite, authorized civil engineer William O. Hands to conduct an excavation to find Joseph and Hyrum's bodies. Hands conducted extensive digging on the Smith homestead, and located the bodies, as well as finding the remains of Joseph's wife, Emma, which had been buried in the same place. The remains—which were badly decomposed—were examined and photographed, and the bodies were reinterred.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith,_Jr.
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It is quite clear from many areas of study that the Book of Mormon is a product of the early 19th century. Studies in archaeology, genetics, linguistics, etc., all show this.

In particular, David Persuitte's book, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, provides an informative, revealing biography of Joseph Smith during his early years, and it provides a very extensive listing of parallels between the Book of Mormon and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews: or the Tribes of Israel in America. This book shows quite well that the Book of Mormon was a product of the time in which Joseph Smith lived.
 
i am a mormon, but i have not practiced the faith for a good few years now, however i would like to think the Book Of Mormon is true i however dont think it is,
 
Clockwood said:
The sad thing about faith is that it demands you believe in something even when there is a whole world of evidence against it. Some could point at the sky and say it was a fish provided some religious text said so.
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Good point; one of the Greek philosophers, I forget which one, said that if cows could have a god, it would have horns--which is absolutely off-topic, I know: anyway, if the ancestors of the Mormons were over here in the States a few thousand years ago building their cities and fighting their wars, as the BoM seems to suggest, surely there'd be a bit more physical evidence to be found? Besides, what happened to the Golden Tablets? If you wanted evidence of unearthly contact and divine revelation, wouldn't you want to hold onto those plates? Yet they vanish, or never existed--if they did exist, it's a bit slipshod to let them get lost somewhere, considering they are essentially the founding document of Mormonism...could you imagine anyone being so clumsy or incompetent as to lose the original 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence, or burning or otherwise disposing of the Magna Carta?
 
devon said:
It is quite clear from many areas of study that the Book of Mormon is a product of the early 19th century. Studies in archaeology, genetics, linguistics, etc., all show this...
This book shows quite well that the Book of Mormon was a product of the time in which Joseph Smith lived.
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one of my ex-co-workers gave me a stack of Biblical Archeology Review (BAR) magazines when I visited there last week for a going-away luncheon.

the reason I bring that up is that the thing I noticed right away is that BAR has pictures of ancient portraits & seals & is inviting people to go dig in the Holy Land on its covers. Yet when you look for the same thing in LDS/Mormon sites you find sites that look suspiciously like Maya to me, they give tours to Book of Mormon 'lands' & seem to have spin & more spin instead of evidence. LDS stuff/magazines do have Egyptian & Maya stuff on their covers, but it seems no real Book of Mormon stuff.

there is a pageant held at Palmyra NY that re-enacts one of the scenes from the Book of Mormon that supposedly happened there. My guess is that if 2 civilizations died there, it would seem to me that anywhere you dug there, there should be skeletons, swords, & other reminders of those long-lost civilizations?

so, my question would be, would anyone believe me if I started to tell stories of ancient Rogaas, Glandoras & Elvia, the ancient empires of 2nd century Europe if no one & I mean no one had ever found any remains how would you know if I was telling the truth, if no evidence exists to prove it? it is supposed to be a history of north America before the Europeans got here after all.
how do we know that there was an ancient Rome, Greece & Egypt?
 
FelixC said:
How do we know that there was an ancient Rome, Greece & Egypt?
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Two ways.
  • 1. There is a continuity of historical record. Since the invention of the technology of writing, the proliferation of written records from sources diverse both culturally and geographically makes it relatively straightforward to authenticate major events like the existence of entire civilizations. Many early records were carved in stone, which is easy to both read and date.
  • 2. In addition to the written records, civilizations leave behind kilotons of artifacts which can be identified culturally by anthropologists and dated rather precisely by radioactive isotopes. Even precivilized cultures often leave things behind that make them easy to identify and place in historical context.
 
When the Dinosaur was 9-10 years old & learning to use his father's Sextion's Omnimeter (a circular Slide Rule), he read an article in the local newspaper about evidence of an ancient civilization.

The article included a picture of a rock with some vague scratches on it. I was amazed that some archaeologist could deduce the existence of a Bronze/Iron civilization in the Western USA from that rock.

I mentioned the article to my father. He said: “I am guessing that the archaeologist is from some university in Utah.” I asked how did you know that? He explained that the Mormon bible had descriptions of civilizations like the Egyptians & Babylonians existing in North America a few thousand years ago. Their scholars/theologians were always trying to prove the validity of the Book of Mormon & often came up with such theories. Since the Mormons were mostly in Utah, it was not a wild guess that the author of the article was from some University in Utah.
 
Written language was around the world except it seems for North America, where the big war in Book of Mormon was fought. The lack of artifacts reminds me of China. After the Communists took over they got rid of the old stuff and replaced it with what chairman Mao considered kosher. A similar thing happened in Cambodia where millions were killed, especially the educated. Much of their history would be lost forever if the world did not know what it was like there before the killing fields. We can even talk about Africa and how Chaka Zulu destroyed many civilizations in his time. What about Carthage after the Romans had the city leveled and the fields salted?

Who really knows what the genetic genotype or blood type of the lost tribe of Israel was? We can assume many things but we don't really know.

You think you get a handle on historical facts and new finds end up making a mess of things. Like the recent discovery of a city in South America were the architecture is not similar to other native Indian types and the residents are thought to have been the blond haired and blue eyed Cloud Warriors. The fact is we don't really know what happened beyond recent memory. Especially in places where historical record is lacking. The Book of Mormon is the story of one group of people annihilating another. If that happened and the victor people lived on for over a thousand years, would there be much evidence of the people who are long since dead? It would be like Stone Henge in England. Somebody put those rocks there but we're not sure who, why, or how.
 
desi said:
Written language was around the world except it seems for North America, where the big war in Book of Mormon was fought.
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Not true. The indigenous civilization of North America (Olmec/Maya/Aztec) had developed written language. The Christian occupying forces methodically burned the Aztec libraries because they were "heathen." Very little material survived. The only one of mankind's six independently developed civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Olmec and Inca) that never invented writing was the Inca. They were the youngest of the six and Christians got there and obliterated it before it had a chance to get that far.

Your sentence would have been correct if it said South America rather than North America. However, North America north of the Rio Grande was culturally separated from what is now Mexico and Central America. No indigenous civilization arose there and the Olmec civilization had not spread that far north. At the time of the Christian occupation several tribes in what is now the USA had advanced to a Neolithic culture (agriculture and the permanent villages it both requires and makes possible), but many were still Mesolithic (nomadic hunter-gatherers).

There was never a bronze age in northern North America. Chief Sequoia of the Cherokee nation invented an alphabet for his people's language (actually a syllabary, to be precise), but only after learning the European writing system.

Writing is a technology that is invented by a civilization once it has had a couple of millennia to develop, generally in its bronze age. The impetus is usually the need to keep records of business transactions, as the economy of scale and division of labor that characterize bronze age civilizations make those transactions ever more complex.

There was never a bronze age in northern North America. Chief Sequoia of the Cherokee nation invented an alphabet for his people's language (actually a syllabary, to be precise), but only after learning the European writing system.
 
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Orleander said:
The book of Mormon is as true as the Bible.
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I don't know how you could make that statement. Have you read both, for starters?

The NT might have some grains of truth in it. Whereas the BOM is a fabrication based upon the bible, and other sources. Other Joseph Smith fabrications are clearly untrue, in 'The Pearl of Great Price' he describes the inhabitants of the Moon. He was a conman, and very good at his job.
 
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