Horses and the Book of Mormon

[_MCB]

Or llamas, except the person who suggested this is "an enemy of the church," and therefore to be ignored or laughed at.

[_jskains]

One of the concerns I have had is how important horses were in the Book of Mormon

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... ts/?id=129

Thoughts?

JMS

[_Tarski]

One of the concerns I have had is how important horses were in the Book of Mormon

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... ts/?id=129

Thoughts?

JMS

lol

This little blurb just comes across as desperate and rambling.

Now you seem to be downplaying the importance of horses and the even the importance of the whole issue.
Is this change of emphasis a sign you are finally getting an inkling that there were no horse in Book of Mormon times.

I would appreciate it if you would not dance around. Please defend the idea of horses in the Book of Mormon against the science that says otherwise.

By the way, the Maxwell institute still has a web-page giving a bogus horse claim and they leave it there despite my having pointed out the misinformation to them several times and despite the fact that no MI apologist posting at MAD has ever been able to defend it (they just more or less agree that it is a mistake).
How honest is that??
You are being BSed by apologists

By the way, if there were to ever new world horse remains dated to Book of Mormon times, it would do nothing to bolster the Book of Mormon in my opinion.
Why?
If I wrote a fake (and fantastic) story about my adventures talking to the animals at a particular zoo and I included my visit with the lions, the actual existence of lions in the zoo would not be evidence for my story being true.
On the other hand, if it were found out that this particular zoo had no lions, then it would count against my story being true.
If lions were shown to be in the zoo after all then we are back again to the unsurprising situation where as before the existence of lions at the zoo does nothing to provide evidence for my fantastic tale (which should be doubted for other more important reasons).

Horse issues can work against you but not for you.

[_beastie]

One of the concerns I have had is how important horses were in the Book of Mormon

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... ts/?id=129

Thoughts?

JMS

Interestingly, even this minimizing approach has a serious problem: apologists concede that, even if hardly any horses existed, they were mainly associated with the elites. A rare animal being associated with elites makes it even more likely that said animal would be part and parcel of New World mythology and imagery.

In other words, this argument makes the absence of a horse-shaped hole even worse.

[_jskains]

There is a hole in your argument. You are assuming we found pictures that reflect Nephite or Lamanite culture.

We haven't.

JMS

[_beastie]

There is a hole in your argument. You are assuming we found pictures that reflect Nephite or Lamanite culture.

We haven't.

JMS

Well, certainly your position conflicts with the apologists who adhere to Mesoamerican LGT. They assure us we have found Nephite and Lamanite artifacts: we just call them Mayan and Olmec. The same principle would be true no matter where the Book of Mormon was located. They had to be part of a larger culture, that would have known about horses as well as the Nephites and Lamanites did. And if you adhere to a hemispheric model, your problem is even worse.

[_jskains]

You feel it makes it worse. I feel again compelled to read the text. It is about a lost civilization that was wiped out. And if their use of horses were limited to a point they even were wiped out, then following cultures would nto nessesarily add them.

JMS

[_beastie]

You feel it makes it worse. I feel again compelled to read the text. It is about a lost civilization that was wiped out. And if their use of horses were limited to a point they even were wiped out, then following cultures would nto nessesarily add them.

JMS

So you say you reject Mesoamerica LGT. Do you adhere to a hemispheric model, or LGT with some other placement?

I'm just curious - it's not like your answer will change your problem. Unless you imagine some civilization that lived on a completely isolated island, cut off altogether from any host culture, you'd find evidences of horses or the horse-shaped hole.

Here's an analogy to demonstrate the problem with your approach: if some future anthropologists is trying to decide whether the lost city of Salt Lake had cars, it wouldn't matter whether or not one could find the lost city itself, because the lost city was part of a larger culture, and that larger culture obviously had cars.

[_jskains]

So you say you reject Mesoamerica LGT. Do you adhere to a hemispheric model, or LGT with some other placement?

I don't believe that there is a nessesary model. I am sure it was limited in the sense that the focus is on the group and the areas they claimed as their own world. It seems to be that geography was far less important than the stories themselves. I am not sure God really intended us to ever know where they were from.

This isn't a science book or even really a history book. It is a book of lessons.

I'm just curious - it's not like your answer will change your problem.

I don't see a problem. :)

Unless you imagine some civilization that lived on a completely isolated island, cut off altogether from any host culture, you'd find evidences of horses or the horse-shaped hole.

I imagine the other civilizations left them alone or were created after the fact. I don't imagine the importance of a horse was great enough to keep active in their mythology. For all we know, there were so few horses left, that by the time the other civilizations were large enough or cared enough, there were none left to follow.

Here's an analogy to demonstrate the problem with your approach: if some future anthropologists is trying to decide whether the lost city of Salt Lake had cars, it wouldn't matter whether or not one could find the lost city itself, because the lost city was part of a larger culture, and that larger culture obviously had cars.

That is a false approach. If only Salt Lake City had access to those cars and was wiped out, then the use of cars could possible be lost. Expecially if the cars were biodegradable. :)

JMS

[_Darth J]

We also can't forget that the Nephites knew about donkeys, too. Otherwise, how could a Nephite writer say that people bore their burdens like a dumb ass? Mosiah 12:5; Mosiah 21:3.

Anyone seen any pre-Columbian donkeys?

By the way, the FAIR wiki also perpetuates the idea that no horse bones have been found in the lands of the Huns.

If the hundreds of thousands of horses owned by the Huns left little or no trace, it may not be surprising that little has been found in the Americas, given that the Book of Mormon's role for horses is minimal. Ironically, there is perhaps more physical evidence of horses among the Mesoamericans than among the Huns.

And of course relying on not only false assertions, but not addressing the relics of horse domestication present among the Huns but not any pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere civilizations.

The Book of Mormon says that horses were native to America/ "the Americas."

And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper.

1 Nephi 18:25

If "horse" was just a loan word, and donkeys look a whole lot like horses, it is curious that the Book of Mormon distinguishes between horses and asses (asses also being native to wherever you think the Nephites found themselves).

The idea that there were only a few horses for the "elite" or whatever directly contradicts the Book of Mormon.

And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.

Enos 1:21

And it came to pass in the seventeenth year, in the latter end of the year, the proclamation of Lachoneus had gone forth throughout all the face of the land, and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance, and did march forth by thousands and by tens of thousands, until they had all gone forth to the place which had been appointed that they should gather themselves together, to defend themselves against their enemies.

3 Nephi 3:22

Therefore, there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land; and thus the eighteenth year did pass away.

3 Nephi 4:4

And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every man, with his family, his flocks and his herds, his horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them.

3 Nephi 6:1

You know, since the LDS Church is adamant that the Book of Mormon tells a true story, this isn't an issue you can just brush off. The Church doesn't just leave it at "it's a book of stories." The Church teaches that it's a book of stories that really happened somewhere in the real world. Getting your animals straight does kind of matter, since the Book of Mormon does put these details in there.

Other than the extremely implausible and contrary-to-the-book idea that the vast Nephite civilization had only a handful of horses in a very small area (where did they get these horses, by the way?), is there any apologetic theory better than God can give Joseph Smith the power to translate a book, but in the process a person who was raised on a farm doesn't know the difference between a horse and other animals?