If, maybe, this thread can stay on track and polite . . .
I was really interested in the answers to the Joseph Smith questions. I may have to read up on this some. Thanks for the answers.
Is there any speculation on where the immigrants to America in the Book of Mormon, set up their city? Who their descendants were?
Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
There's a lot of speculation, but nothing is specifically mentioned. There are three different groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon. One group comes to the Americas at approximately the time of the tower of Babel occurance in the Bible. The second is the group that most of the Book of Mormon deals with, who migrated about 600BC. The third group migrated shortly before the Babylonians captured Jerusalem. The actual locations these different groups set up is highly speculated. The Book of Mormon mentions only that the first group settled "to the north" and was completely wiped out (except for one man) due to a genocidal war. Many people speculate the second groups settled around the Yucatan peninsula area. The third group settled near the first group, and were the ones who discovered the remains of the destroyed civilization. I'd keep going with what I know, but most of it is just speculation.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
There's been more speculation than we could possibly list here Though the most persuasive modern theories set the Book of Mormon in Guatemala and southern Mexico during the Preclassic Maya period.
The book ends with the destruction of the more authentically-Israelite nation (the Nephites) by a rival nation that has largely "gone native" (the Lamanites). Virtually every Nephite was killed, leaving the Lamanites to replace them and build their own culture without competition, around the time that Preclassic Maya culture transitioned into Classic Maya.
Posted by Puppy (Member # 6721) on :
By the way, that explanation is pretty well filtered through my own favorite theories and interpretations. The official position of the Church is that we don't know.
Posted by MattB (Member # 1116) on :
quote:Is there any speculation on where the immigrants to America in the Book of Mormon, set up their city? Who their descendants were?
Yeah, there's a cottage industry, predominately outside of the structure church (although back in the 1980s BYU, owned by the church, absorbed FARMS - the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies - a group of trained archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists who have done most of the BoM research over the past few decades). The Church itself has never taken an official stand on a location, but there's a lot of speculation. Joseph Smith clearly thought that the BoM extended across the entire continent and that all Native Americans were descendants of the two parties of Israelites whose migration the book describes, but that was probably just his uninformed nineteenth-century opinion. Later in his life he grew excited over the discoveries of Mayan and Aztec ruins in Central America, and that area has been the focus of speculation since.
The general sense among academic Mormons these days leans towards the limited geography thesis that Geoff described in the other thread; that is, that the events described in the Book of Mormon took place over a relatively small area, perhaps the size of Pennsylvania, in Central America, and the Israelite immigrants encountered and perhaps assimilated much larger native populations that were already here. This gets around the recent DNA research which links Native Americans to Asia.
The pathbreaker for most of this stuff has been John Sorenson, whose 1984 book _An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon_ pretty much set the field for current research.
Posted by MattB (Member # 1116) on :
Heh. There weren't any other posts when I started. What they said.
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
I'll tell you what: I'd hate to be at the tender mercies of the Maya.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
I do want to point out that there still is a *small* group of LDS who think the Book of Mormon was set in North (as opposed to Central) America in the New York, Pennsylvania area. Interesting enough, however, those who think about the issue at all (meaning don't stick with tradition for tradition's sake) have come to the same conclusion of a limited geography. A close reading of the Book of Mormon pretty much spells out such a limited geographical condition.*
Myself? I am split between the two areas. There are too many strengths and flaws between them.
*And that makes it interesting because Joseph Smith (the one who apparently wrote the thing and considered it at first to be placed among the whole of North and South America) didn't seem to understand his own text. In fact, time and again he simplified the story when describing the contents of the book, when in fact only recently have both believers and critics recognized the complexities. Before that time the same two groups accepted the explanations of Joseph Smith about its contents and often argued from the statements.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
Here is a letter that I wrote a long time ago. Sadly, I never got the answers to the questions, although I did get a reply that indicated he was too busy to answer such complicated questions over an e-mail. I include this to give you a sense of the complexities of the questions originally raised in this thread.
Dear Mr. May,
This letter is in response to your book volumes "This Land," and another one by a different author. I have been very impressed with your work. Frankly, I agree with you that the cultural and historical aspects of mesoamerica are inadiquate models for Book of Mormon events [edit: I breifly mention later in the letter that the strength of the Mesoamerican model is technological]. This is not to deny the relationships that exist, but I tend to believe such are from defusion and refinement of earlier peoples. It is amazing how far from original perceptions the Saints have come [edit: the whole of North and South America is covered in the Book of Mormon]. It has, literally, become an article of faith that mesoamerica is the place or no place can be [edit: Mesoamerican geographers are very dismissive of North American ones].
I believe the reason behind this happens to be two fold. First, as good of reasons as they might have, [mesomerican]apologists are trying to distance the evidence as far away from the knowledge of the time period of Joseph Smith as possible. This makes it easier to state that Joseph Smith could not possibly have come up with it on his own. To be honest, I was uncomfortable that you quoted from Dan Vogel who is one of the most prolific and able doubters of Mormonism. The downside is that much of the theories must reinterpret the Book of Mormon beyond its straitforward information [edit: I am particularly talking about its America as Zion teachings]. The second reason is the training they have in the University world. Despite the revolutionary theories that any Book of Mormon discussion generates, most are trained to see things in a particular way and work from there.
Having said all of the above, it is now time to write to you conserning things I have questions about. I will list them in no particular order.
1. The Book of Mormon seems to take place in a very dry and hot area of the world. Snow is mentioned only once and that in a dream. On the other hand, there is always mention of extreme heat during battle and even rain seems rare. How do you account for that considering the mid-and-upper North American context?
2. In one of the books at your site, it states "Genetic evidence shows that several waves of migrations came into America from not only Siberia, but also from Polynesia, China, and Japan. A mysterious genetic type has been identified in ancient American skeletal remains as well as in some modern Native Americans. This enigmatic type is linked to the Middle East and may well have originated in a location between America and Europe." Considering the recent controversy about the purely Asiatic DNA of Indians, what is your opinion?
3. I am trying to trace Book of Mormon name meanings. What intrigued me about your book was dealing with North Native American languages. They seem to be much closer to the Book of Mormon than the Mesoamerican languages that are almost alien. Have you or anyone else done any more languistic traces?
4. Maybe I have not been paying enough attention. However, it seems to me that there is some problem with the technological developments of the North American Model. Specifically, it would seem that there would be much more stone work and artistic florishings in as highly complex a culture as the Book of Mormon has. Do you think you can account for that, or am I reading too much into the BofM or not enough into your theories?
Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
wow, I've been away a long time was my thread inpolite? *opens in new window* er... I hope at least I wasn't... I'll post back once I've read
Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
ok, I'm really enjoying reading the other thread and seeing the arguments on both sides, both have made some excellent points which reaffirms my agnosticism... ...seems to me since one can't logically prove OR disprove the existence of god it's best to be open minded to both possibilities ^_^
Now can someone tell me the story of Joseph Smith as the Moromons understand it?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
I think it was other people who ruined your thread, Antony.
Posted by Lanfear (Member # 7776) on :
I went on a cruise to Central America. It was a "book of Mormon" cruise, and Dr. Lund showed us where he thought all the events took place. It was quite interesting.
Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
Oh, another question...
Are Mormons Raman or Varelse?
^ joke by the way Posted by Boris (Member # 6935) on :
quote:Originally posted by Antony: Now can someone tell me the story of Joseph Smith as the Moromons understand it?
How about we just give you the link to the whole story in his own words? Here. Posted by Antony (Member # 7947) on :
thats a pretty long read in many chapters, can't you summarise? I'll have a skim of it later tho, I promise
Posted by estavares (Member # 7170) on :
Here's a much shorter version, with links with more info:
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Though the most persuasive modern theories set the Book of Mormon in Guatemala and southern Mexico during the Preclassic Maya period.