Not only are traditional views about the text dead, but any fair meaning of the text itself is also dead. Nephi and his descendants are described as powerful kings and leaders, whose influence extended over many polities.
Yet there is no way that happened in mesoamerica, not for the least reason that, had it happened, the Nephite cities would have been the very cities establishing the culture and traditions others followed for many centuries.
Since that obviously didn't happen, Book of Mormon apologist must distort what the text itself says. In "saving" the Book of Mormon, they have also rendered it meaningless.
One could reasonably argue, for example, that the Jesus visitation was really just a mystical apparition of an ancestor to a powerless king over a tiny polity, using the current Book of Mormon technique.
Read my essay to see why the Book of Mormon can't mean what any reasonable person would think it meant:
Perhaps its time you stop pretending to be a serious, objective critic of the Church and cease trying to foist this kind of stuff on the clueless. The entire Nephite history could have come and gone over a relatively small geographical area, and furthermore, the sheer fragmentary and incomplete nature of the Archaeological record of Mesoamerican history, as well as the utter destruction of many aspects of early Mesoamerican civilization, virtually ensures that your entire argument here is purely hypothetical and indeed, wanders well over the line of serious thinking on the matter and into the realm of special pleading. I am not, and no faithful LDS should be, swayed by the completely hypothetical and theoretical extrapolations from within the humanities disciplines of Archeology and Anthropology regarding what Nephite society could or could not have been like based upon a vastly data poor and theory and speculation rich understanding of Mesoamerican history.
The arguments made in your links are not compelling precisely because they rely on so many tenuous extrapolations and assumptions from what are already heavily theoretical constructs regarding the past, as well as assumed interpretations of what the Book of Mormon text says that are quite carefully constructed to support your argument.
1.
The Lehites reached the New World in approximately BC 589. The text makes no mention of the Lehites meeting the pre-existing “others”, the indigenous natives, but the foundation of the Limited Geography Theory demands their existence.
The fact that the Book of Mormon text, of which we have, according of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon text itself, only a small fragment, does not mention these "others" means necessarily nothing. Nephi was clear that one set of plates was set aside for strictly spiritual things, and another to chronicle the wars, contentions, and general social conditions of his people. He may or may not have had some concern with any other peoples on the continent of which he was aware. If he did, we may simply not have that aspect of the record. How do you know? As you do not accept the Book of Mormon as a historical record a priori, you can simply dismiss any counter argument I make here as ex post facto circular reasoning, and not bother with the weakness of your own speculations.
The Book of Mormon is understood as scripture, and its primary concern is with a branch of the house of Jacob through Joseph and their dealings with the Lord on this continent. It does not directly concern these "others" and hence, does not detail any dealings with them. Indeed, if large scale intermarriage and contact did occur, these people may have been generally integrated, in the Book of Mormon authors mind, with either the Nephites or Lamanites, depending on political and cultural factors. These are the two great political, cultural, and spiritual demarcation lines of the times, and anyone closely integrated with Nephite and Lamanite civilization may simply have been lumped together as belonging to either group by the Book of Mormon writers. In any case, strictly political and social dynamics, independent of Gospel teaching, were of little interest to the writers of these texts.
2.
However, an additional meeting point, largely ignored, is required due to Mesoamerican history.
This should be a red flag to anyone following this discussion who has any knowledge of the philosophy and history of science. Anytime scholars begin using terminology such as "required by history", there is good reason to believe that what we have here is a huge leap over a vast gap in data and understanding, and in the case of Mesoamarican history, those gaps are large and deep.
The Book of Mormon tells us that the Nephites ruled the City of Nephi until their flight guided by King Mosiah in approximately BC 279 (Omni 13). This dating places them as leaders of Kaminaljuyu from the later portion of the Middle Preclassic period to a hundred years into the Late Preclassic period. While it appears that Kaminaljuyu likely did not reach the full extent of its power until after the dating of the Nephite exodus, it is undeniable that it was already a well organized settlement with a structured leadership by the time that Nephi and his followers would have pitched their tents and named the location the City of Nephi. This indicates that almost immediately following Nephi’s arrival in the New World, he was able to persuade two groups of unmentioned indigenous others to not only join his company, but to actually elect him as their king.
Snip:
Although we can only speculate about how Nephi accomplished this feat, given the fact that the background of these indigenous others included the tendency to completely enmesh religion and government (see the Holy Lords section), it seems quite reasonable to conclude that this must have included a religious conversion. What a remarkable event this would have been, surely surpassing the later miraculous conversions of Lamanites. Yet, strangely, the Book of Mormon, a text that the authors tell us is written for intent of bringing souls to Christ, is completely silent on this event. Regardless of how the indigenous others were persuaded to elect Nephi as their leader, the group went on to experience great prosperity, to the point where Jacob, Nephi’s brother, already saw fit to warn the people of the danger of pride.
The thrust of Beastie's argument here, as is the case with the arguments of so many observers of human culture (not the least of which is ancient culture) who come to the table with a positivistic, environmental determinist template. (This template is useful, even if not coloring all aspects of the critics world view, in filtering out the actual complexities and vagaries of human behavior and cultural development; gaps in knowledge, and large unknowns regarding what actually did or did not happen in a past that is known only in fragments and is largely unrecoverable at higher degrees of resolution) is, not to put to fine a point on it, that since Beastie doens't think certain occurrences the Book of Mormon claims happened happened, then they did not, in fact happen.
The language he uses here is indicative: "This indicates that almost immediately following Nephi’s arrival in the New World, he was able to persuade two groups of unmentioned indigenous others to not only join his company, but to actually elect him as their king." Now, as anyone who understands the nature of Biblical languages and linguistic devices knows, when Nephi says "And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after we had journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents", this term "many days" may mean some months or a number of years. As the term "forty days" is used biblically to mean "a very long time", so "many days" means precisely this; many days. How long we do not know.
He uses terms such as "it seems quite reasonable to conclude" yet does not tell us why. He does not tell us why it is equally reasonable to conclude that Nephi and his people initially camped and built dwellings around the city (suburbs, so to speak), and gradually integrated themselves into the city's cultural and political life over time. Beastie wants us to believe that the time frame of cultural integration is quite rapid, yet the Book of Mormon demands no such interpretation.
further, nothing, neither Archaeological evidence or the Book of Mormon text prevents the city in question from having been abandoned when it was found (if only for a short period of time, perhaps decades or even a few years). Either through war, revolution or disease, this was hardly uncommon in the ancient American world (The Anastazi disappeared from their cliff side dwellings at some point, but if one had in wandering, come upon their city, even if it had only been abandoned for a few months, this would matter little for our purposes, as the time resolution of Archaeological dating is nowhere near what is necessary to pin down an exact year, or month, at which such a thing might have taken place).
Indeed, nothing prevents the Nephites from having discovered an abandoned, or partially abandoned city, essentially moving in, and then being present when many of the original inhabitants migrated back. Anything could have happened. I don't know, and Beastie doesn't' know. He wants to believe certain things must have transpired in a culturally channeled, deterministic way because he needs to believe the Book of Mormon is false. The agenda, as always, precedes the interpretation of evidence.
He says "Yet, strangely, the Book of Mormon, a text that the authors tell us is written for intent of bringing souls to Christ, is completely silent on this event.
Here Beastie creates a textual criticism of the Book of Mormon from a hypothetical mass conversion experience among the people of the city of Kamnaljuyu that the Book of Mormon doesn't mention, but which Beastie thinks should or must have happened, derived from a logically vague extrapolation from the text that since the Book of Mormon's primary purpose is to brings souls to Christ, for Nephi to have eventually become a king here, there must have been some kind of mass conversion. As one can see, this follows only psychologically, and not logically, from the Book of Mormon's stated prime directive, and in the day to day dealings with the cultures around them, over years and generations, there is no need for there to have been constant attempts at conversion on a mass scale, nor need Nephi have required this. The Book of Mormon prophets were of a substantially democratic frame of mind, according to the text. There is no reason why multiple religious beliefs could not have existed side by side with Nephi as a king in a somewhat pluralistic city-state (the law could have no hold on anyone according to their belief, under Nephite rule).
Beastie here also assumes ("these indigenous others included the tendency to completely enmesh religion and government") that because a general cultural tendency obtained in a certain region, it must necessarily have continued in exactly the same way under Nephite influence, necessitating something near deductive conclusion regarding what it is "quite reasonable to conclude happened." predicated upon that theoretical template. Of course, we are speaking of things claimed to have occurred some 600 years B.C. among peoples and cultures about whom, despite what Beastie would like you to think, we know relatively little, and, of course, even vastly less regarding isolated incidents like the origin of the city of Nephi
Further, Beastie makes conclusive claims about the Book of Mormon text based upon Sorenson's suggestion of Kaminaljuyu as the city of Nephi without bothering with the obvious: Soronson may be wrong. The city of Nephi may be in another region entirely, buried under meters of volcanic basalt or mud (as are some number of other known sites, which we may never be able to get to at all). That doesn't really matte for Book of Mormon historicity in any case, as there are a number of ancient Mesoamerican languages that at present cannot be deciphered (and many never be), and therefore we wouldn't know a Nephite city if we saw one unless we could read the stelas or other texts available. Soronson can make educated guesses, and Beastie can make educated guesses, but at the end of the day, limbo reigns supreme in critically uncertain areas such as Archeology and ancient human history.
The evidence for Book of Mormon historicity is quite good, for anyone with an open mind who wants to look at it. There is also plausible evidence against it. As with DNA, the huge gaps and uncertainties in our knowledge preclude us from dogmatic assertions, which is why Book of Mormon apologists don't make them, while critics trade in dogma (like Beastie's certainty regarding the clearly purely circumstantial refutation of the Bat Creek inscription).
Skepticism is good in moderate and reasonable doses, but those like Beastie who cling to it as an ideology would have stalled science and humanities disciplines in there tracks ages ago if left to run their course without restraint. Beastie, like the two authors of the Bat Creek Stone refutation, are credentialist gatekeepers of academic orthodoxy defending ideological turf. It took Thor Hyerdahl, some half a century ago, to prove empirically what theory said was impossible, with materials and technoogy well below what was available to engineers and designers in the ancient world.
I can't possible respond here in this particular thread.any further to Beasties lengthy, challenging, and detailed sophistries, as this will get way overlong.