Bill Hamblin: "The Book of Mormon is Historically Fallible."

[_The Dude]

Coggins:

The problem with your reading, with Hamblin's reading, and with moderator's reading is this: I WAS NOT TRYING TO DEBATE! I'm no archaeologist (did I mention that?) and my post was merely an attempt to summarize what I thought was Hamblin's point about the importance of text evidence. Go back and read my post with that in mind, and then consider the way Hamblin answered me.

Was I justified in calling him a "huge jerk"?

Am I justified in being majorly pissed off at the arrogant attitude over there?

It's endemic, really. The rabid MADites routinely run off naïve questioners as trolls and sockpuppets. The MAD board has jumped the shark in such a big way.

[_beastie]

Coggins,

You, as Bill Hamblin, seem blithely unaware that the arguments you are making directly contradict the very point of Sorenon's work on this subject.

Perhaps Sorenson isn't on the talking points list?

[_beastie]

Let me demonstrate with a small section from my Power and Polities essay that deals at length with this subject.

http://zarahemlacitylimits.com/wiki/ind ... _and_Power

Sorenson gives quite detailed explanations for why he chose the site locations he did for Book of Mormon sites. In his explanations, he does what Hamblin, and apparently Coggins, believe cannot be done: without the aid of written text, he uses the evidence from the ground to construct a theory. This is what archaeologists do, amazingly enough. Read how he defends using Santa Rosa for Zarahemla:

A unique fact about the pattern of this settlement came to light in the excavations by the New World Archaeological Foundation. Archaeologist Donald Brockington, who helped excavate part of the largest pyramid mound in the center of Santa Rosa, found that in this structure, constructed in the first century BC, a layer of gravel had been laid which was then stuccoed over as a footing on which the mound was further built. The base gravel was of two completely different kinds, clearly brought there from two sources. The line separating the gravel areas was meticulously straight and was oriented approximately east and west, dividing the structure exactly in half. Furthermore, the site’s inhabitants lived in two oval-shaped zones separated from each other by a ceremonial zone oriented along the same line. Brockington concluded that the gravel had been laid down by two distinct social (perhaps linguistic) groups that occupied the site and that seem to have related to each other by formal ritual and political arrangements. Could these two groups have been the people of Zarahemla and the people of Nephi? Mosiah 25:4 supports the possibility: “And now all the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they were gathered together in two bodies.” Also the “churches” Alma organized (Alma 25:19-21) were probably based on ethnic/residential units. If two distinct peoples did live in separate sections within the city, the arrangement would agree with later Mesoamerican practice.

Alas, alack, it turns out that this piece of evidence - could it be called empirical? - that seems so exciting a match at first blush turns out to be deeply flawed, as explained by Deanne Matheny:

A number of archaeological investigations have occurred at Santa Rosa in the state of Chiapas, Mexico – the site which Sorenson suggests comes closest to this profile suggested by the Book of Mormon. The first investigations there were carried out by Gareth W. Lowe in 1956. He noted that Santa Rosa appeared to be the largest Preclassic site on the Grijalva River between the site of Chiapa de Corzo and the Guatemalan frontier. More intensive fieldwork was carried out by the New World Archaeological Foundation in 1958. Located on the south side of the Grijalva River at its confluence with the Aguacate River, the site of Santa Rosa is composed of over forty earthen mounds. A cluster of twenty-eight mounds oriented along a general east-west line forms the central group. Delgado noted that there is little planning in the architectural layout other than the general east-west orientation. The central portion of the site includes an area about 500 meters north-south by about 800 meters east-west. Mound W is the tallest at the site, reaching a height of 14 meters. Mound S, a platform measuring 74 meters east-west by 80 meters north-south, is the largest.

The excavations at Santa Rosa were adequate, although by no means as extensive as those at Chiapa de Corzo and other sites in the region. These excavations consisted of seventeen trenches in mounds and twenty-nine stratigraphic tests pits. The excavations revealed six periods of prehistoric occupation at Santa Rosa and one brief period of historic occupation. Phase I is Middle Preclassic (800-600 BCE) with no known associated architecture; the ceramic distribution suggest that a zone of scattered houses existed along the Rio Aguacate. In Phase 2 (600-500 BCE), also Middle Perclassic, Brockington postulates from his study of ceramic distribution that there was a clustered village with a moiety or dual division indicated by two separate parallel areas of potsherds. The village was oriented in relation to a ceremonial structure (Mound V).

During phase 3 (500-50 BCE) there was further ceremonial construction (mounds G and W), and the two parallel areas of postherd concentrations continue although they are longer and wider, indicating that the basic Phase 2 arrangement continued but with greater population. Phase 4 (50 BCE- CE 200) was a time of cultural florescence at Santa Rosa with considerable construction in the ceremonial center. According to Brockington, the areas of potsherd concentrations seen in the previous two phases survive but have more complex patterns. He sees this as evidence that a basic moiety division continued to exist. As further evidence he mentions a layer of gravel atop Mound S at the site center. The gravel on each side of a median line was different and unmixed, suggesting that a separate group made each section.

Phase 5 begins about CE 200 and corresponds to the Early Classic period in the Maya area. Remains from this period are sparsely represented at Santa Rosa, and little construction can be assigned to this period. The population at the site seems to have declined significantly from Phase 4 times. Ceramic distribution is altered from earlier periods; a concentration now runs through the site center along a northeast-southwest line. This change probably indicates a break with earlier traditions. Brockington suggests that there may have been a hiatus of occupation between Phases 5 and 6. In Phase 6 (CE 800-1000) the settlement patter was similar to Phase 5 and the population was close to the smaller population of Phase 5. A long hiatus of occupation at the site followed Phase 6. It lasted until after the Spanish Conquest when the site was reoccupied for a short time, probably early in the nineteenth century.

My comments:

This sentence in particular is problematic for this “hit”. In Phase 2 (600-500 BCE), also Middle Perclassic, Brockington postulates from his study of ceramic distribution that there was a clustered village with a moiety or dual division indicated by two separate parallel areas of potsherds. This crucial sentence actually reveals that the division which Dr. Sorenson points to as evidence of the two groups living in Zarahemla: the people of Nephi and the people already living in Zarahemla - actually long predated the arrival of Mosiah and his followers. Of course, this does not preclude the possibility of a THIRD group joining two already pre-existing groups at Zarahemla, but there is no evidence of a third group. It is extremely misleading to cite this as evidence supporting the Book of Mormon text when surely Dr. Sorenson had access to the actual information, which, according to Matheny, clearly states that the moiety division began in Phase 2, long before the arrival of Mosiah.

See, folks, this is how it works. Written texts are only one source of information about ancient cultures, and often not even the best source, as riddled as they tend to be with propaganda.

[_Coggins7]

[

quote="The Dude"]Coggins:

The problem with your reading, with Hamblin's reading, and with moderator's reading is this: I WAS NOT TRYING TO DEBATE! I'm no archaeologist (did I mention that?) and my post was merely an attempt to summarize what I thought was Hamblin's point about the importance of text evidence. Go back and read my post with that in mind, and then consider the way Hamblin answered me.

Was I justified in calling him a "huge jerk"?

Am I justified in being majorly pissed off at the arrogant attitude over there?

It's endemic, really. The rabid MADites routinely run off naïve questioners as trolls and sockpuppets. The MAD board has jumped the shark in such a big way.

[/quote]


This is the problem Dude, you do not present yourself as a serious intellectual interlocutor of other intellectually serious defenders of the Church. You then feel put out about this perception of yourself. Scratch has the same problem. He's no scholar, but he's not even seriously educated upon most of the subjects upon which he takes strong issue. Therefore, he doesn't get taken seriously by serious people.

My advice would be to take some time and delve seriously into the relevant LDS scholarship on these subjects and then engage Hamblin or whoever in a cogent debate having some background in the subject matter, even if you disagree with it.

[_beastie]

Coggins,

Anyone who makes or supports this statement:

The reason we can’t “identify” Nephite sites is because we lack sufficient texts giving the ancient pronunciation of proper names to allow us to do so. How can we possibly be expected to determine if a particular site is or is not Zarahemla if we do not know the ancient name of that site? It boggles the mind that Anti-Mormons are so thick-headed that they can’t seen this patently obvious fact.

can ill-afford to lecture others about serious, intellectual, scholarship.

[_beastie]

Dude,

It's helpful to remember the real purpose of MAD. It isn't to actually engage in substantial debate. It's to give apologists a forum in which to, either by bluster or, on the odd occasion, substance, reassure believers who are being exposed to troubling issues that really smart, educated people have studied this issue and tell you that smart and educated people provide really good reasons for continuing to believe. It's what I think of as the Nibley approach.

Ignore the man behind the curtain.

[_Mister Scratch]

Coggins:

The problem with your reading, with Hamblin's reading, and with moderator's reading is this: I WAS NOT TRYING TO DEBATE! I'm no archaeologist (did I mention that?) and my post was merely an attempt to summarize what I thought was Hamblin's point about the importance of text evidence. Go back and read my post with that in mind, and then consider the way Hamblin answered me.

Was I justified in calling him a "huge jerk"?

Am I justified in being majorly pissed off at the arrogant attitude over there?

It's endemic, really. The rabid MADites routinely run off naïve questioners as trolls and sockpuppets. The MAD board has jumped the shark in such a big way.

This is the problem Dude, you do not present yourself as a serious intellectual interlocutor of other intellectually serious defenders of the Church. You then feel put out about this perception of yourself. Scratch has the same problem. He's no scholar, but he's not even seriously educated upon most of the subjects upon which he takes strong issue. Therefore, he doesn't get taken seriously by serious people.[/quote]

I see once again, my dear Loran, that you are bandying about the term "serious". I ask you again: what do you mean by this? Whose definition of "serious" are you relying upon? Yours? The Church's? The academy's? You've said before that you never managed to earn a college degree. Are we therefore supposed to assume that you cannot be taken "seriously"?

(Even now, I can hear the delightful plunking noise of that cornpone classic... Can you hear it, Cog-meister? "Dueling Banjos" is wafting through the air....)

My advice would be to take some time and delve seriously into the relevant LDS scholarship on these subjects and then engage Hamblin or whoever in a cogent debate having some background in the subject matter, even if you disagree with it.

It is kind of hard to engage Hamblin et. al. in a forum where anything contrary to the views of these guys gets censored or punished by the fittingly named MAD moderating team.

[_beastie]

I posted this a while ago, either on FAIR or Z, I don't remember which, to try to address this recurring fallacious argument, that Hamblin has dressed up to take out on the town once again.

How We Know What We Know

I’ve seen this line of thinking expressed so frequently in Book of Mormon discussions that I decided it was worth my time to address is. I’m going to coin the term “know nothings” to designate the position that we really don’t know enough about Mesoamerica to make an informed judgment about whether or not the Book of Mormon really fits the background culture and chronology. The reasons given are normally that we really can’t know much about what happened thousands of years ago, that our inherent bias is too overwhelming, and that they didn’t have “written records” (which, by the way, is not an accurate statement unless qualified to time periods).

So how do the scholars in the field justify presenting the picture of ancient Mesoamerica that they pretty consistently do? The following are some comments addressing that point, made by some of the most highly respected scholars in the field.

First, they do realize they are working under certain limitations, but those limitations do not amount to “know nothingness”.

Maya Cosmos, Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path by David Freidel, Linda Schele and Joy Parker

The ruins of Chich’en Itza are not the Chich’en Itza conceptualized by the ancient Maya. This city has become part of our contemporary experience. Because we modern pilgrims are ignorant of the intentions of the original builders, we impress our own meanings and aesthetic values on the Maya monuments, just as we always do when we contemplate masterworks of art from other cultures and other times. At Chich’en, all that is different is the scale – in this huge museum, visitors stand inside the artifact they have come to see. And our ignorance is convenient, for it allows free rein to the modern imagination. We see in these ruins what we want to see, be it affirmation of the romantic mysticism of springtime pilgrims, or the practical materialism of many modern scholars who devote lifetimes to studying the Maya. And when we begin to understand what the builders intended – through our decipherment of the Maya dedicatory texts, analysis of their images, and the study of their architecture and the artifacts they left littering the landscape, we learn that our imaginations have been constrained by our own cultural filters in tricky and deceptive ways. Though we have tried to interpret the intentions of the Maya within the context of what we see as ‘civilized behavior’, somehow their culture just does not make a “fit” with the patterns of behavior laid down in our own world. We are forced to acknowledge that our perception of the past is always a prisoner of the present. Our reconstruction of the mountains inside the Maya mind is, like the pyramidal mountains restored by the careful archaeologist, an interpretation and not the true original.
(36)

But even given the constraints of our understanding, the scholars still assert that knowledge IS possible. I will try to share quotes from several authors that demonstrate WHY knowledge IS possible.

From the same text:

Once we have discovered the rationales of the Maya – through the words and actions of the Maya themselves – it is our heartfelt belief that we will also discover a central truth: that Don Pablo’s (my insert – a modern Maya) rickety altar of saplings erected in the parched woods, the ruined temples of Yaxuna built at the dawn of the Maya civilization, and the Castillo of Chich’en Itza raised in its final glory are essentially forms of the same thing. They are all symbols of the Creation of the cosmos. They are all instruments for accessing spiritual power from the creative act, and that power continues as a fundamentally human experience and responsibility. In this common purpose, they are signposts on the Maya road to reality stretching across the landscape of history. (37)

(off topic comment, isn’t that beautiful writing? I love it when experts can actually write in a captivating manner that helps even us dummy laymen grasp their points.)

More comments from the same text:

Sometimes the patterns of modern Maya spiritual belief are embedded in ritual actions and the Classic-period meanings are lost or changed. Sometime the meanings from Classic times remain but are attached to different symbols. Regardless of the transformational processes at work, we can still discern continuities in the basic structures. And these continuities will often elicit new possibilities of relating the past to the present. (57)

And one more from this text:

The lowland Maya began raising sacred mountain-pyramids of their own by at least 600 BC. They soon became masters at sculpting in plaster, the abundantly available architectural material of the region. By around 300 BC Maya master builders were decorating their human-made mountains with extraordinary cosmic images. These artisans, like their Olmec counterparts, did not yet put lengthy texts on their buildings. Nevertheless, we can identify the meaning of their designs because the Classic-period Maya who followed them retained the strategic symbolism of the early Maya builders quite faithfully. And these later descendants put text on much of their art – ranging from single glyphs to entire histories. We can extrapolate the meaning of these symbols and images backwards into the Preclassic Maya world with considerable confidence. (139)

Ancient Maya, The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization, by Arthur Demarest

Maya archaeology has shown unusual promise in revealing the patterning of a vanished non-Western society and the lessons that such patterns might have for contemporary social science. Repetition in architectural layouts, symbols, and activities provides one key to understanding Maya political structure and ideology. This ideological structuring of ancient material culture is more easily interpreted in the case of the ancient Maya because the ethnohistoric and modern Maya continued modified forms of these ancient traditions, beliefs, and rituals. Archaeological interpretation of patterning is now also being aided by the heiroglyphic texts found on artifacts found on artifacts and stone monuments, which provide information otherwise unattainable by the best archaeological research. Most such epigraphic insights concern elite culture and society, and only some features and practices can be extrapolated to the entire population. Yet, if we are careful not to naïvely accept and overemphasize their elite perspective, the inscriptions reveal particular aspects of Maya culture and thought, and they provide a timeline for major political events and influential trends of the Classic period. (100)

from Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World by Lynn Foster

When one thinks about the Maya civilization of southern Mexico and northern Central America, the adjective mysterious inevitably comes to mind. The mysterious Maya has been an epithet for this great people for the past two centuries at least. Early Spanish expeditions found the remains of great ruined cities and [b]speculated that they were evidence of the lost tribes of Israel. Nineteenth-century travel writers explored the cities and echoed the same sentiments or brought the lost continent of Atlantis into the equation [/I]; only a few travelers such as John Lloyd Stephens maintained that the cities and temples were built by the ancestors of the very people whose villages and towns they passed through on their journeys: the Maya. Even in the middle of the 20th century – when virtually all scholars agreed that the ruined cities in the jungle were built by ancient Maya – there was considerable debate about the origin and nature of Maya civilization…

On the heiroglyphic front, major discoveries between 1958 and 1964 led to the discovery of the names of historical individuals and of the cities they ruled. These cities were governed by the dynasties of kings, and the magnificent stone stelae, altars, and lintels recorded their exploits – their births and deaths, their conquests and ceremonies.

Thus over the past 40 years or so, and especially over the past 20 years, the popular view of the ancient Maya has been radically transformed. The earlier view of a strange society unlike any other in Earth’s history has yielded to one that has much more in common with other world civilizations. Finally, the Maya have become less mysterious – and more human – with human strengths and foibles.

There has not been any single great breakthrough in the study of the Maya that has been responsible for this progress, although breakthroughs there have certainly been. Rather, the advances have been similar to those in most other fields of endeavour; they are the result of patient and painstaking work by dozens of scholars working in a variety of disciplines to find yet one more piece of the puzzle. And while the puzzle still has many missing pieces, both the “big picture” and many of its details are now clear and in focus.

The recent advances in our knowledge of the ancient Maya have been the result of research in many fields – archaeology, epigraphy, ethnohistory – and the result of learning from the contemporary Maya…

(my insert, paragraphs citing specific breakthroughs)

A great source of our knowledge of the ancient Maya is the wealth of “ethnohistorical” data that survives about the Maya. From the Quiche Maya of highland Guatemala we have their great epic the Popol Vuh, which includes one of humankind’s great creation stories. From northern Yucatan we have the Books of the Chilam Balam, with their mixture of prophecy and arcane astrological knowledge, and a book of medical incantations, the Ritual of the Bacabs – to name just a few….

One of the great advantages in our understanding of the ancient Maya is the fact that the Maya are still very much alive. The contemporary Maya number in the millions, and there are still two dozen Mayan languages spoken today. In some cases the Maya are still practicing traditions that are thousands of years old. Our ability to learn from the contemporary Maya about their ancient forebears is in stark contrast to some other ancient civilizations, such as that of Sumer and ancient Egypt. (viii)

One last quote that is more explicit:

Maya Political Science – Time, Astronomy, and the Cosmos by Prudence M. Rice

Archaeologists’ interpretations of the past have their conceptual basis in analogy and analogical reasoning. An analogy is a similarity that permits comparison, a relationship between the familiar and the unfamiliar that increases understanding of the latter. Analogical reasoning is a type of inferential argument used in logic, linguistics, mathematics, biology, and many social science fields, in which “one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect on the basis of the known similarity in other respects. Simultaneously objective, subjective, deductive, inductive, and adductive, analogical reasoning invokes comparisons between the unknown and the known on the basis of recognition of shared similarities or homologies in the relations between things, not in the things themselves…

The most appropriate, credible, and enlightening kinds of analogies in archaeology, then, are specific rather than general, and are drawn from known continuities through the direct-historical approach. This process for investigating culture [pre]histories involves “working back into prehistoric time from the documented historical horizon”. Its advantage is the greater “prior probability” that a given analogy is correct because of known continuties in the compared cultures.

What is the best or most appropriate source of analogy for explaining Classic lowland Maya political organizations? My position favors the direct-historical approach, and thus I seek similarities between the Classic lowland Maya and their Postclassic, early Colonial period, and modern descendants in the lowlands. “Most appropriate” does not mean perfect isomorophism, freedom from error, absolute “truth” or proof of a theory. Clearly circumstances differ between the Maya in Peten (the modern political unit encompassing northern Guatemala) in AD 750 and the Maya in northern Yucatan in AD 1500-1950. And by adopting the direct-historical approach as the methodological armature of my study, I am neither negating nor ignoring the usefulness of insights gained from analogies to behavior, events, and phenomena drawn from farther afield. Nevertheless, I maintain that we can learn more about Classic Maya political organization by working back from the Postclassic lowland Maya than we can by beginning with African chiefdoms or feudal Europe. {p 4)

I have no doubt that some of you will not be reassured by the confidence of these scholars. I know that some of you will prefer to believe that they have overextended the possible knowledge, and that what they say doesn’t really matter much, in the end. It is my opinion that you would not be so dismissive of the knowledge of scholars if their analysis were more supportive to the Book of Mormon story, but that is just my opinion.

[_Coggins7]

I really don't think Hamblin and Sorenson are at loggerheads here as is claimed. The core point regarding texts is attaching actual names to Book of Mormon places, such as cities or regions, which is not possible at this point, and may never be, as we have no understanding of a number of the ancient languages used.

Sorenson is looking at physical evidence and asking whether or not connections to Book of Mormon peoples are plausible. I don't think these are necessarily inconsistent. Indeed, is some Rosetta stones do eventually turn up, it would be just as relevant to the plausibility or lack thereof of Sorenson's approach to placing Book of Mormon peoples as Hamblin's

More on this later after I've had a chance to study the matter a little more.

[_beastie]

Coggins,

In your studying, you may want to review Sorenson's text, which is considered foundational for LGTists. His entire book is predicated upon the idea that we can, indeed, make strong arguments "attaching" Book of Mormon cities to specific Mesoamerican sites, based on specific information provided by the Book of Mormon itself.

To dwell on whether or not one can find an actual name inscribed on a road sign somewhere is diversionary. What is humorous about this is that often believers accuse critics of not being satisfied unless we can find an ancient sign saying "Zarahemla City Limits". I've yet to meet a single critic who adheres to anything even remotely resembling such a framework, yet, ironically, it appears that now the apologists are insisting that since no such sign exists, then no one can reasonably select or eliminate ancient Mesoamerican polities as Book of Mormon sites.