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I posted this on CB and am sure I'll find a more skeptical audience on CUF. I expect that things along these lines have been hashed out plenty of times over here, but here are a few thoughts.
I don't claim any of it "proves" that the BOM is historical. Only that there is enough mass of these types of items that it requires the claims of the BOM to be examined seriously.
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While I think it's self-evident to anyone who understands the truthfulness (and truthiness) of the BOM that real knowledge of it can't be based on a list of scientific or archaeological facts, I completely reject the notion that seeking deeper understanding of the cultural / historical / linguistic / anthropological contexts for it is problematic on any level.
On the contrary - because the claims that the BOM makes about its origins are so outlandish to people outside of our religious context (angels? visitations? seer stones? talking into hats?), people who have any higher level of education often need some level of comfort concerning the basic historical plausibility of the BOM before they will open their minds to its more significant spiritual implications.
When I lived in the UK I dated a girl who was on a study abroad from an Ivy League school who converted and went on a mission - but her conversion really only caught fire after she'd studied some of the issues about the historicity of the BOM. It's not that she needed to have anything proven to her - it's that she needed to feel it was plausible first before she would give the spiritual things space to breathe. She's not the only one who has followed that sequence into conversion.
The reality is that there are many astonishing facts relating to the historicity of the BOM, a few of which I'll post here.
1. NAHOM
On the groups exodus into the desert south of Jerusalem they take "what we now know to have been the only possible way out...Only the south desert, the one land where Israel's traders and merchants had felt at home through the centuries, remained open - even after Jerusalem fell this was so. At their first camp, Lehi follows the now recognized ME practice ("which no Bedouin would dream of transgressing" says one scholar) of naming both rivers and valleys found along the journey after family members. Subsequently the band buries Ishmael at a place not named by them--"it was called Nahom" and the women did "mourn exceedlingly" (1 Nephi 16:34)
There is zero recorded awareness of such a place in 19th c America. In the 1990s a team of German archaeologists discovered a carved altar a few dozen miles east of San'a in modern Yemen inscribed with a reference to the tribe of Nihm. The Arabic root NHM means "to sigh or to moan" and the related Hebrew "Nahum" means "comfort." Obviously the striking fact here is in (a) an established pattern of giving places family names being (b) broken in one single specific place which apparently already had a name which is then (c) confirmed by archaeological finds in the 1990s, constituting the first archaeological evidence for the BOM.
2. BIZARRE BUT NOW AUTHENTICATED NAMES
Paanchi, Korihor, Pahoran and Hermounts - all BOM names - just sound made up. But they are real examples of the book's "Egypticity" (reflecting Palestine's extensive cultural and economic ties to Egypt in the period).
Paankhi turns out to be an Egyptian name in the seventh century B.C. and Korihor turns up in both Egyptian and Asiatic derivatives. Givens notes that "in this regard, it is well worth noting that William Foxwell Albright, doyen of American ancient Near Eastern Studies wrote to a critic seeking to debunk Smith's writings that "when the Book of Mormon was written Egyptian had just begun to be deciphered and it is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanchi and Pahoran which appear together in the BoM in close connection with a reference to the original language being 'reformed Egyptian.'" "Hermounts" meanwhile - in the BoM a wild country of the borderlands - bears a striking similarity to the Egyptian "Hermonthis" (the land of Month, god of wild places and things).
3. REFORMED EGYPTIAN - A VERY REAL THING
A bizarre notion in 19th century America. Was heavily ridiculed both at the time the BOM was published and since.
It's now well-established that "the use of Egyptian symbols to transliterate Hebrew words and vice versa is known from sixth century B.C. texts discovered at Arad and Kadesh-Barnea" - John Tvedtnes.
4. WHITE PEOPLE IN THE ANCIENT AMERICAS
Until very recently the notion of a white race co-habiting the American continents with the ancestors of the American Indians seemed to be another farfetched BoM fantasy.
It is now accepted fact that there were white groups on the American continent which all either became extinct or absorbed into other groups. The Chachapoyas were only conquered and assimilated by the Incas in the 16th century. Numerous other histories and traditions point to a variety of white races - the Incas themselves attribute their complex mountain top network of roads to an earlier group that they describe as being "fair skinned and red haired." At Fort Mountain in the state of Georgia is a mysterious 855 ft stone wall which has never been explained or thoroughly researched. But the Indian tradition is that their ancestors faced and destroyed a "fair skinned moon-eyed" people at that place and annihilated them with "great slaughter." This is not the sort of tradition that bubbles up out of nothing. And the presence of this rather hastily constructed stone wall suggests that Fort Mountain was a defensive position of last resort for the people building it. A couple of links: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chachapoyas_culture"]Chachapoyas culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Mergefrom.svg" class="image"><img alt="Mergefrom.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Mergefrom.svg/50px-Mergefrom.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/0/0f/Mergefrom.svg/50px-Mergefrom.svg.png[/ame], http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...zon/article.do
5. SCARY ACCURATE CORONATION RITES
King Benjamin's address at the temple in Zarahemla is made to multitudes who come to witness his bestowal of the kingdom on his son, Mosiah. The ceremony includes a number of elements that, Nibley observes, have exact parallels in a tenth-century account of the coronation of Prince of Captivity (or Exilarch) in babylon, made by Nathan the Babylonian. According to Nathan it was customary for all to bring precious gifts to the ceremony (which Benjamin, explicitly contrasting himself to others in that role, expressly forbids).
Babylon's Nathan constructs a tower. Mosiah constructs a tower. A lengthy address is part of both proceedings. The new year's greeting described by Nathan finds echo in Benjamin's casting of the occasion as a day of rebirth and new beginning. In compliance with the festival's main purpose of reaffirming national obedience to the Law the Exilarch reads to the people from the Book of the Law. Benjamin also reviews the moral code and exhorts his his people to "keep the commandments of my son, or the commandments of God which shall be delivered unto you by him." Nathan's participants engage in choral responses to the king" just as Benjamin's people all "cried aloud with one voice" reciting more than fifty words collectively at one juncture. 31 elements of the Babylonian ritual have emerged "piece by piece in the present generation" says Nibley and are "now attested in every country of the ancient world. There is no better description of the event in any single ritual text than is found in the Book of Mosiah."
I don't claim any of it "proves" that the BOM is historical. Only that there is enough mass of these types of items that it requires the claims of the BOM to be examined seriously.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I think it's self-evident to anyone who understands the truthfulness (and truthiness) of the BOM that real knowledge of it can't be based on a list of scientific or archaeological facts, I completely reject the notion that seeking deeper understanding of the cultural / historical / linguistic / anthropological contexts for it is problematic on any level.
On the contrary - because the claims that the BOM makes about its origins are so outlandish to people outside of our religious context (angels? visitations? seer stones? talking into hats?), people who have any higher level of education often need some level of comfort concerning the basic historical plausibility of the BOM before they will open their minds to its more significant spiritual implications.
When I lived in the UK I dated a girl who was on a study abroad from an Ivy League school who converted and went on a mission - but her conversion really only caught fire after she'd studied some of the issues about the historicity of the BOM. It's not that she needed to have anything proven to her - it's that she needed to feel it was plausible first before she would give the spiritual things space to breathe. She's not the only one who has followed that sequence into conversion.
The reality is that there are many astonishing facts relating to the historicity of the BOM, a few of which I'll post here.
1. NAHOM
On the groups exodus into the desert south of Jerusalem they take "what we now know to have been the only possible way out...Only the south desert, the one land where Israel's traders and merchants had felt at home through the centuries, remained open - even after Jerusalem fell this was so. At their first camp, Lehi follows the now recognized ME practice ("which no Bedouin would dream of transgressing" says one scholar) of naming both rivers and valleys found along the journey after family members. Subsequently the band buries Ishmael at a place not named by them--"it was called Nahom" and the women did "mourn exceedlingly" (1 Nephi 16:34)
There is zero recorded awareness of such a place in 19th c America. In the 1990s a team of German archaeologists discovered a carved altar a few dozen miles east of San'a in modern Yemen inscribed with a reference to the tribe of Nihm. The Arabic root NHM means "to sigh or to moan" and the related Hebrew "Nahum" means "comfort." Obviously the striking fact here is in (a) an established pattern of giving places family names being (b) broken in one single specific place which apparently already had a name which is then (c) confirmed by archaeological finds in the 1990s, constituting the first archaeological evidence for the BOM.
2. BIZARRE BUT NOW AUTHENTICATED NAMES
Paanchi, Korihor, Pahoran and Hermounts - all BOM names - just sound made up. But they are real examples of the book's "Egypticity" (reflecting Palestine's extensive cultural and economic ties to Egypt in the period).
Paankhi turns out to be an Egyptian name in the seventh century B.C. and Korihor turns up in both Egyptian and Asiatic derivatives. Givens notes that "in this regard, it is well worth noting that William Foxwell Albright, doyen of American ancient Near Eastern Studies wrote to a critic seeking to debunk Smith's writings that "when the Book of Mormon was written Egyptian had just begun to be deciphered and it is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanchi and Pahoran which appear together in the BoM in close connection with a reference to the original language being 'reformed Egyptian.'" "Hermounts" meanwhile - in the BoM a wild country of the borderlands - bears a striking similarity to the Egyptian "Hermonthis" (the land of Month, god of wild places and things).
3. REFORMED EGYPTIAN - A VERY REAL THING
A bizarre notion in 19th century America. Was heavily ridiculed both at the time the BOM was published and since.
It's now well-established that "the use of Egyptian symbols to transliterate Hebrew words and vice versa is known from sixth century B.C. texts discovered at Arad and Kadesh-Barnea" - John Tvedtnes.
4. WHITE PEOPLE IN THE ANCIENT AMERICAS
Until very recently the notion of a white race co-habiting the American continents with the ancestors of the American Indians seemed to be another farfetched BoM fantasy.
It is now accepted fact that there were white groups on the American continent which all either became extinct or absorbed into other groups. The Chachapoyas were only conquered and assimilated by the Incas in the 16th century. Numerous other histories and traditions point to a variety of white races - the Incas themselves attribute their complex mountain top network of roads to an earlier group that they describe as being "fair skinned and red haired." At Fort Mountain in the state of Georgia is a mysterious 855 ft stone wall which has never been explained or thoroughly researched. But the Indian tradition is that their ancestors faced and destroyed a "fair skinned moon-eyed" people at that place and annihilated them with "great slaughter." This is not the sort of tradition that bubbles up out of nothing. And the presence of this rather hastily constructed stone wall suggests that Fort Mountain was a defensive position of last resort for the people building it. A couple of links: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chachapoyas_culture"]Chachapoyas culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:Mergefrom.svg" class="image"><img alt="Mergefrom.svg" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Mergefrom.svg/50px-Mergefrom.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/0/0f/Mergefrom.svg/50px-Mergefrom.svg.png[/ame], http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...zon/article.do
5. SCARY ACCURATE CORONATION RITES
King Benjamin's address at the temple in Zarahemla is made to multitudes who come to witness his bestowal of the kingdom on his son, Mosiah. The ceremony includes a number of elements that, Nibley observes, have exact parallels in a tenth-century account of the coronation of Prince of Captivity (or Exilarch) in babylon, made by Nathan the Babylonian. According to Nathan it was customary for all to bring precious gifts to the ceremony (which Benjamin, explicitly contrasting himself to others in that role, expressly forbids).
Babylon's Nathan constructs a tower. Mosiah constructs a tower. A lengthy address is part of both proceedings. The new year's greeting described by Nathan finds echo in Benjamin's casting of the occasion as a day of rebirth and new beginning. In compliance with the festival's main purpose of reaffirming national obedience to the Law the Exilarch reads to the people from the Book of the Law. Benjamin also reviews the moral code and exhorts his his people to "keep the commandments of my son, or the commandments of God which shall be delivered unto you by him." Nathan's participants engage in choral responses to the king" just as Benjamin's people all "cried aloud with one voice" reciting more than fifty words collectively at one juncture. 31 elements of the Babylonian ritual have emerged "piece by piece in the present generation" says Nibley and are "now attested in every country of the ancient world. There is no better description of the event in any single ritual text than is found in the Book of Mosiah."
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