If the Book of Mormon is true, what should we find?

[Guest]

One quote by Michael Coe has alaways intrigued me:

"[O]ur knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and 'Pilgrim's Progress')." (Michael D. Coe, The Maya, London: Thames and Hudson, 4th ed., 1987, p. 161.)


My questians to those who argue historicity by virtue of a lack of evidence are:

Name me the name of one Olmec king(??? - 700bc), his city , one of his priests and the name of his succesor.

What are the original names of San Lorenzo, La Venta, El Mirador and Monte Alban.

The Book of Mormon defines a nephite as 1) literal descendant of Nephi, 2)a supporter of the kings descendant from Nephi, 3)a believer in the religion of Nephi and a Lamanite as anyone who is not a Nephite , what would a nephite bowl, fertility statue, throne, temple or fortification look like?



In otherwords, what would the Nephite and Jaredites leave behind that is recognizably "nephite" or "jaredite"?

[_moksha]

We do know that some civilizations have left past artifacts that they were there.

[_Her Amun]

Who is to say that some of the pottery, figurines and ruins dating from ??? - 400bc, 600 bc - 430 ad arn't from the Jaredites and Nephites??

For me, the questian isn't one of " why hasn't anything survived", but rather "how will we recognize it as belonging to Book of Mormon peoples".

[_CaliforniaKid]

Who is to say that some of the pottery, figurines and ruins dating from ??? - 400bc, 600 bc - 430 ad arn't from the Jaredites and Nephites??

Does the pervasive worship of animal deities count?

[_GoodK]

My questians to those who argue historicity by virtue of a lack of evidence are:

Name me the name of one Olmec king(??? - 700bc), his city ,

King Po Ngbe. Guerrero.

one of his priests and the name of his succesor.

You got me there. What's the point though? Is this like saying you can't reject the Book of Abraham without being an expert in Egyptology?

[_Mad Viking]

For me, the questian (is) ... "how will we recognize it as belonging to Book of Mormon peoples".

What is your answer? By what criteria do you identify an artifact as "belonging to Book of Mormon peoples"?

[_The Dude]

If the Book of Mormon is true, what should we find?

....

In otherwords, what would the Nephite and Jaredites leave behind that is recognizably "nephite" or "jaredite"?

Joseph Smith provided us with a sample of Nephite writing, in the form of ancient "characters" that he copied off the golden plates and gave to Martin Harris for expert validation. This is the only tangible piece of evidence that the golden plates ever existed:



These characters are what we would expect to find if the Book of Mormon was true, yet they remain an unintelligible mishmash, with no similarity to the ancient Maya script that is, to date, the only written language of the pre-Columbian Americas.

This, Her Amun, is what we would expect to find. Now is the time for you to fall back on "why hasn't anything survived" with this kind of writing????

[_Mahonri]

We expect to find exceedingly find works in Gold and many other metals.We would expect to find remains or at least war weapons remaining in areas of the great battles. We would find wheeled vehicles as used by those who came or learned of them from those who had them.

We would have city remains of the huge populations here in the US per Joseph Smiths statements as to the location of the Nephites.

[_Her Amun]

Does the pervasive worship of animal deities count?

Well the Nephite/Lamanites weren't alaways "good jews".

King Po Ngbe. Guerrero.

Now give me ten! Just kidding ; )

You got me there. What's the point though? Is this like saying you can't reject the Book of Abraham without being an expert in Egyptology?

No, its to illustrate an important fact that, aside from Mormon's Codex, we have no surviving written history of from Book of Mormon times with which to compare the Book of Mormon.

We do know that some civilizations have left past artifacts that they were there.

And the "Nephite/Lamanites" were a part of those civilizations just like 19th century Mormons were part of american civilization.
Scan the Book of Mormon's definitions for these terms and you'll see that they are socio political, religious and not merely ethnic.

What is your answer? By what criteria do you identify an artifact as "belonging to Book of Mormon peoples"?

I don't know, I really don't expect to find aything.

The Book of Mormon is a lineage history for 2 groups of prophet-kings that originated in Israel and presumably Mesopotamia.
It chronicles God's dealings with them and the populations they ruled over. I really don't expect a "nephite" sword to be different from a Mixtec one.
Nor do I expect a "jaredite" structure to be different from an olmec one; not any more different from a Methodist chapel when compared to a batist one, or republican cars to be different from democrat cars. To be sure the Book of Mormon people did alot things differently from their mesoamerican neighbors, but these werebased on their religious beliefs, beliefs recorded on documents, from a time that none survive. See OP.

Now, what we expect to survive would be different than proof.

I think to prove the Book of Mormon true, you would need something painfully obvios. I think you would need to find a tomb for Nephihah, Helaman and Mosiah with some accompanying text that quotes form the Book of Mormon and talks about Jerusalem. You would need to find a Jewish Pacal.
Are there examples of such tombs from Book of Mormon times?
This is why I don't think people who reject the Book of Mormon are stupid. There is tons of evidence for the book, but no archeological proof that would render Moroni 10:4 - 5 null and void.

This, Her Amun, is what we would expect to find. Now is the time for you to fall back on "why hasn't anything survived" with this kind of writing????

I know its been a long time answering but I will. In a rush.

We expect to find exceedingly find works in Gold and many other metals.We would expect to find remains or at least war weapons remaining in areas of the great battles. We would find wheeled vehicles as used by those who came or learned of them from those who had them.

We would have city remains of the huge populations here in the US per Joseph Smiths statements as to the location of the Nephites.

same as above

[_Her Amun]

This, Her Amun, is what we would expect to find. Now is the time for you to fall back on "why hasn't anything survived" with this kind of writing????

On what basis do we assume that the use of Moroni's reformed egyptian was widespread and not the idiosyncratic tradition of these prophet-scribes?

We expect to find exceedingly find works in Gold and many other metals.

Good point. The tarascanos used metal weapons before the spanish came. The earliest evidence of metallurgy in mesoamerica is from, i think, 9OO's ad. So when it comes to the Book of Mormon, the questian is not "if" they had metallurgy, but "when".

We would expect to find remains or at least war weapons remaining in areas of the great battles.

Where do we look?

We would find wheeled vehicles as used by those who came or learned of them from those who had them.

The Book of Mormon has one reference to King Lamoni's "chariot"; what makes us believe this was a wheeled vehicle, much less in common use?

For me, the most interesting thing about anti-mormon arguments are the underliyng assumptions behind them.