The link is to a trailer for a tv/cable documentary/series that plans to explore evidence for the Book of Mormon. No station has picked up the series yet, thank heavens. I haven't looked up the people involved in making this, but they all seem to be clearly LDS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtBe4MxtT4I

It would fit right in the time slot between Ancient Aliens and UFO Hunters on the (flecks of) History Channel.

Perfect time slot for it.

Actually, not a bad idea for a comedy show, take a BoM concept and try to re-enact it considering actual accepted science and historical information, like Myth Busters. Imagine some guys trying to re-enact a battle riding tapirs!

Sounds about right for it!

...because it will make a lot of them scratch their heads and think "Hmmm, the church has been telling us for decades now that the Book of Mormon story took place in Central America or Mexico. But now these other Mormon guys are trying to tell us that it took place in the USA region. If the church leaders and these alleged scholars can't agree that it occurred in one general area, then what evidence shows that it occurred anywhere at all?"

Actually; Joseph Smith would tell stories about the "local Mound Builders" so it was in the northeast and Midwest where the BOM took place. Remember he dug up Zelph's skeleton in Illinois.

I don't know who started the whole Inca/Mayan connection with the Lamanite/Nephite stories. Now the corp is backtracking on that theory, hence in the Essay BoM DNA they are supposing that the Lamanites/Nephites were limited geography story; and the rest of the people on the continent were of Asian descent.

But it's not that cut and dried. They were talking about Central America even in Smith's time. They even said that Zarahemla was probably located in Guatemala.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1550525,1550559#msg-1550559

Agreed. Joseph would change the locations and stories to wherever there was any kind of "proof" found. An example would be the Kinderhook plates which were also found in Illinois, but Joseph said these were from descendants of Ham?!?! of which no scriptures or records were ever found to connect Blacks to the settling of the Americas.

A whole new theory and books are being presented of Africans in America prior to Columbus. Because they have found statues and icons of African faces in the ruins of the Mayans and Incas. http://www.moorsgate.com/2006/10/07/recommended-they-came-before-columbus-the-african-presence-in-ancient-america/

http://article.wn.com/view/2014/02/04/Evidence_Africans_discovered_America_170_years_before_Columb/

So where is our Seer and Revelator to provide us with these new evidences and stories?

Unlike North America, where tribal sensitivities have been ruffled by DNA research that was offered for one purpose and then "interpreted" for another, South American DNA has been studied extensively.

And there are no African markers that can't be explained by post-Columbian contact. Those "theories" aren't new except in the minds of those "hyper-diffusionists" peddling them.

The promoter of the video you linked are as disingenuous--and wrong--as Rodney Meldrum.

Here's the ironclad evidence that South Americans are closely related to the Clovis people, the first widespread culture found in North America. Moreover, the Siberian connection can be demonstrated.

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/2014/02/native-americans-descend-ancient-montana-boy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2015 09:24PM by SL Cabbie.

Ya, it sounds like one of the shows where they try to stay neutral by giving both sides of the story. I can't figure which way this is going to play - for or against. I think it's going to be like those other "mystery" programs where at the end they just say, "So which is it? We may never know ..." and then the dramatic music plays.

Which, when you think about it, still is a play against the BofM. It will unwittingly put the BofM in the same category as "Ancient Aliens", "Bigfoot", and "Prophecies of Nostradamus". Too funny.

"It will unwittingly put the BofM in the same category as "Ancient Aliens", "Bigfoot", and "Prophecies of Nostradamus".

The BOM has always been in that category. TBMs are just too clueless to realize it.

I recognized him immediately from a seminar he held here--my teenage daughter still hasn't forgiven me for taking her along--trying to promote his videos about the "Heartland Model."

Simon Southerton took Meldrum on a long boat ride to Australia and abandoned him in the Outback while he was still seasick (I was pleased to be allowed to drive the boat a portion of the time). Here are some links:

http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/meldrums-x-lineage-good.html

http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2013/09/meldrums-x-lineage-bad.html

http://simonsoutherton.blogspot.com/2013/11/meldrums-x-lineage-ugly.html

Simon even quotes FARMS, pointing to the deep divisions within the church over the possible locations for BOM geography.

>Latter-day Saints deserve far more than Meldrum's pseudo-scientific snake oil...

>Before examining Rodney Meldrum’s Israelite X lineage claims in posts II and III its worth taking a look at what the scientists who did the actual research think about the origin of the X2a lineage. None of the non-LDS scientists involved in the discovery and characterisation of the X2a lineage of Native Americans wishes to cause the Mormon Church any harm. They are merely on a scientific quest for the truth about the origins of Native Americans. This research has led them all to the conclusion that the X lineage arrived in the Americas over 15,000 years ago. The two most important X lineage papers were published in 1998 and 2003 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, one of the leading international human genetics journals.

Viewers along the Wasatch Front can also see Wayne May's junk archaeology program on his quest to find "missing Nephite warriors"; May is the editor of "Ancient American," a fringe archaeology magazine dedicted to his never ending circular reasoning quest to prove the BOM is true and not a work of badly written 19th Century fiction. That program runs Saturday afternoons on KSTU Channel 20.

And then there's this wonderful exchange between Meldrum and some authentic scientists over the authenticity of a known fraud, The Newark Holy Stone... Simon Southerton showed up and Meldrum accused him of "stalking him" and then blasted him for having been excommunicated for an "improper relationship" (while Simon was separated from his wife; the exing took place after they reconciled) when everyone here realizes it was because of Simon's publishing of the DNA research in "Losing a Lost Tribe."

http://apps.ohiohistory.org/ohioarchaeology/newark-holy-stone-is-featured-on-america-unearthed/

(No prizes for guessing who tipped off Simon; I don't stalk Meldrum either, but I do get e-mail updates on Brad's blogs about authentic archaeology events in Ohio)

To sum up the arguments between Meldrum and the LGT crowd, Meldrum points out there's no DNA evidence for the BOM in South America, and the LGT group is saying the same thing about the Great Lakes region.

Both sides are representing the facts accurately this time, and the only reasonable conclusion is the BOM is an utter fraud.

It's amazing what some people would rather try to do than work for a living.

At this point I ignore any apologist stuff purporting to prove the BOM. I don't consider myself closed-minded, but my studies show very strong evidence that the book was a 19th century fabrication through and through. If any real evidence to the contrary shows up, I'll consider it. The trouble is that the book has to be accepted using faith, and I don't consider religious faith to be a valid epistemology. In short, I just can't buy the shit.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/2015 09:34PM by rationalist01.

"my studies show very strong evidence that the book was a 19th century fabrication through and through. If any real evidence to the contrary shows up, I'll consider it."

Well, do the math. The BOM was published 185 years ago, and not one iota of solid physical evidence has been discovered to substantiate it. So the odds of any evidence being discovered in the future are virtually nil. As I wrote several years ago:

"The BOM storyline goes on to say that the Lehites eventually make it to the Promised Land (the American continent, of course) and they grow into a mighty nation of hundreds of thousands of people, occupying the land for 1,000 years (not to mention the preceding Jaredites, who allegedly arrived circa 2500 B.C. and grew to number in the millions.) The Lehites divide and war against each other.

"The BOM gives very specific details about its characters' culture, religion, politics, flora and fauna, etc. The BOM people speak/write Hebrew and some form of Egyptian. They worship the Old Testament God, follow the law of Moses, and even preach and worship Christ both before and after His ministry.

"They train horses and use them to pull chariots as Old World people did. They develop metalworking skills and smelt 'swords of finest steel' and other metal tools and weaponry.

"They grow into a population as vast 'as the sands of the sea' and build great cities which 'cover the land with buildings from sea to sea.' Early in the 5th century A.D., the wicked Lamanite faction battles and eliminates the entire opposing Nephite nation, which numbers more than 300,000.

"Numerous artifacts of that Christ-worshipping, horse-training, Hebrew-writing, steel sword-making culture should be scattered all over the region in which LDS apologists claim the BOM took place (Central America). But, of course, there aren't any. None, zip, nada. Apologists cite tantalizing "possible evidence" such as few horse bones, meteoric iron ornaments, the Bat Creek stone, etc. They propose excuses for lack of evidence such as 'Maybe the horses were deer,' etc. But they cannot show a single, unambiguous, confirmed item of physical evidence to show that the BOM occurred anywhere in the Americas."

Any other 19th century fiction created from the mind of a teenager?

Frankenstein.

It's interesting to compare the Nephites over their 1000-year history with the Romans.

The Roman presence in Europe is well-documented with millions of artifacts. Nephites? Nary a single coin or inscription.

See my summary: "Nephites and Romans": http://packham.n4m.org/romans.htm

...that years ago, on the Ex-Mo e-mail list, I wrote a post comparing the size of the Roman army to the numbers of Nephite warriors given in the BOM. It had occurred to me that to put the call for physical evidence for the BOM in perspective, a good comparison would be the Roman army and its incursions all over Europe. Info like this was helpful:

"The legions, consisting almost entirely of heavy infantry, numbered 25 of about 5,000 men each (total 125,000) under Augustus, increasing to a peak of 33 of about 5,500 (c. 180,000 men) by 200 AD under Septimius Severus."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_army

The BOM states that the number of Nephite warriors killed in the final battles of Cumorah circa 400 A.D. was 230,000. That's 50,000 more soldiers killed in one war than the total number of Roman soldiers serving at the peak of the Roman Empire!

As you write, there is abundant evidence of the Roman invasions and occupations all over Europe, including Britain. It's been documented in multiple histories beginning contemporaneously with the events. The Book of Mormon people allegedly wrote in Hebrew and some sort of Egyptian up to the 5th century A.D.; but we can't find a single item to document those people, their culture, their wars, etc., even though just their armies alone numbered greater than the Roman army at its peak.

Mormons are using known fraudulent artifacts and making false claims about actual archaeological sites to try to provide evidence. They have to because the Book of Mormon is a 19th century fraud. Here is something that Wayne May did in another video, claiming that an Egyptian temple was found in Tennessee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp__F3zf2n4

But here is the truth about that so-called temple:

Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 118, 1938, "An Archaeological Survey of the Norris Basin in Eastern Tennessee" by William S. Webb, pages 161-179.
https://ia600604.us.archive.org/21/items/bulletin118smit/bulletin118smit.pdf

The picture in the video can be seen on plate no. 108. There are no stone pillars. Page 165 explains what they are. "The earth piers shown in the photographs of the excavations contained post fragments which were being "treated" before being removed from the ground." And no Egyptologists were brought in.

When Mormons misrepresent science to argue for evidence it does more harm than good. And that is what they are doing with "Hidden in the Heartland".

First clue that the video narrator doesn't know what she's talking about: She says "the Tennessee Authority." What she's referring to is the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is the federal agency formed during the New Deal era to build hydroelectric dams throughout the south to electrify the region.

Norris Dam is 20 miles up the road from me. It was the first dam built in the TVA system. The TVA had to spend years buying up the land which would be inundated by the filling of the lake behind the dam. That required the movement and re-settling of entire communities of people who had lived there since around 1800. The largest town was called Loyston. Every so often, when the lake is drawn down, you can see the old home foundations etc. Here's some info:

http://lostcityofnorris.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyston,_Tennessee

The Will Lenoir Museum sits just downstream from the dam:

http://www.norrislakeliving.com/latest-news-events/item/106-the-lenoir-museum-cultural-complex-in-norris

Rest assured that if any "ancient Egyptian temple" had been unearthed in the area, that earth-shaking information would have brought every archaelogist and Egyptologist in the world swarming to the site, and it would be duly noted in nearby museums and the very competent department of anthropology at the U. of Tennessee, which is also 20 miles away, and has a very nice permanent ancient Egypt exhibit of its own.

I'd speculate that Wayne May has never even visited the area. He probably just found this info in some crackpot source, and it fit his agenda, so he repeated it.

The whole idea is silly anyway. If May is trying to find evidence of "Book of Mormon people," then what would an alleged EGYPTIAN temple have to do with that? Does he think that somewhere in Nephite history, that the people up and abandoned their Judeo-Christian religion and took up pagan Egyptian rites instead? And how or why did these ancient Egyptian religionists wind up in the hills of Appalachia, in primitive Indian country? How or why did they settle in this one isolated mountain river gorge, with no other evidence of their existence anywhere around the area? Did those ancient Egyptians just drop from the sky, build a temple, and then disappear from the face of the earth?

What a moron.

Wayne May's primary source is from a small booklet written by James Rendel Harris and published in 1935. It was titled "A Temple in Tennessee".

Harris believed that Egyptians had migrated to many places throughout the world. The New York Times had published the photo shown in plate no. 108 and when Harris saw that in the paper he thought it was something that supported his pet theories.

Today people like May and other diffusionists use outdated and discredited writings like Rendel's and present it as evidence. Gullible Mormons who want proof eat that kind of shit like candy.

Harris's booklet is hard to find because there were no reprints or further editions. It does show up once in a while on ebay and amazon. I purchased a copy of it a few years ago because interlibrary loan proved to be difficult.

Also, when I first saw that youtube video I emailed the Tennessee Valley Authority and had a very informative and pleasant correspondence with them. They directed me to Webb's report in the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 118.

The TV series "Hidden in the Heartland" is this same type of nonsense that no credible archaeologist supports.

You know they are insecure when they disable both comments and voting on youtube.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2015 08:42AM by axeldc.

excellent point, randyj

outstanding summary, RP

>Did those ancient Egyptians just drop from the sky, build a temple, and then disappear from the face of the earth?


Well, according to Ancient Astronaut Theory........

>Did those ancient Egyptians just drop from the sky, build a temple, and then disappear from the face of the earth?

"Well, according to Ancient Astronaut Theory........"

Apparently, them damned illegal aliens have been invading the USA for thousands of years. :-)

People who argue for the historicity of the BOM must be seriously math challenged. Besides the fact that the claimed death toll from one battle exceeds the number of soldiers in the entire Roman Empire at the height of its power, just how does one kill 230,000 people in a single battle without modern weaponry? And by modern weaponry, I mean a nuclear bomb.

There were an estimated 205 or so thousand combat deaths, combining both Union and Confederate armies, over the course of the entire Civil War. And that was using rifles and artillary. How do you kill 230,000 people in hand-to-hand combat?

Say, on average, one warrior died every 5 minutes in the battle. It would still take 160 days of every-five-minute death, 24/7, to kill that many people (and that's only the Nephites!) And how many casualties? Or, instead, every fifteen minutes, the sides squared off, and one side killed his opponent outright. Then, fifteen minutes later, another set of combatants died--none wounded, all dead. It would only take three-and-a-half-years of that procedure--non-stop--to kill 230,000.

Forget looking for archeological evidence, just explain to me how it was done.

"People who argue for the historicity of the BOM must be seriously math challenged. Besides the fact that the claimed death toll from one battle exceeds the number of soldiers in the entire Roman Empire at the height of its power, just how does one kill 230,000 people in a single battle without modern weaponry?"

On that note, here's something else to think about: Years ago, I read an article on this subject. The author pointed out that it would have been next to impossible for people under those conditions to even count that number of soldiers, let alone keep track of how many of them were killed. That task would have been even more difficult for the prior "Jaredites," who supposedly lost TWO MILLION men in battle. Can you imagine the size of the infrastructure that would have been necessary just to document those figures?

And yet, we're expected to believe that not only are those figures accurate, all evidence of the existence of that infrastructure has vanished from sight.

Labeling Wayne May a moron is only half the story; he and his crowd are certainly diabolgical in their stupidity with their selected editing in these videos used to make it appear legitimate, sane sorts have endorsed these views which are so far from mainstream consensus it's difficult to get authentic scholars and scientists to comment on them (probably because they keep breaking into fits of uncontrolled laughter).

This one comes up linked on the right of the one offered in the first post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk5ZLaYLrPk

Sane sorts like Roger G. Kennedy and Sonya Atalaly are featured juxtaposed between Wayne May and his unidentified female narrator who repeatedly slips in innuendo and intentional hyperbole in order to fuel the non-existent drama.

Unfortunately, Kennedy passed away in 2011, but many of the other scholars have voiced outrage over the way their words were misrepresented in order to imply they endorsed these claims.

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/civilizations_lost_and_found_fabricating_history_-_part_one_an_alternate_re/

>"The Lost Civilizations of North America" documentary is one in a long line of failed attempts to populate America’s ancient past with the denizens of lost tribes, lost cities, and, as its title indicates, lost civilizations.

This latest follows the same M.O. and the blended soundbites and editing are even more dishonest and misleading, despite the skill used in their creation and the obvious effort expended.

There's no doubt many here will be seeing these "proofs" offered up by their TBM relatives, etc. and despite all the polish, nothing has been offered that in any way contributes to actual science or the advancement of human understanding (unless one classifies displays demonstrating the pyschopathology of human dishonesty under that umbrella). Here are some important points to remember to counter these claims:

a) There was a thriving coppersmithing culture during this period of Native American history. However, this was "native copper" which existed in the Great Lakes area in relative abundance. Copper is one metallic element that is often found in its pristine, un-oxidized state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_copper

b) Claims of their use of iron are also legitimate; in this case, though, it was "meteoric iron," and not the product of smelting (as Wayne May dishonestly suggests)

c) The only shred of "DNA evidence" that LDS apologists (and discredited "hyper-diffusionists" like Dennis Stanford) have been able to cling to has been the X haplogroup of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Native American mtDNA differs significantly from the haplotypes found in the Old World, and its entry into this hemisphere circa 15,000 years ago has been proven repeatedly.

Here are a couple of other howlers that are also linked. The first one contains a favorite clip of mine since it shows Glenn Beck at his psychotic finest. He speaks of The Bat Creek Stone--a proven archaeological fraud--as being found in "an official Smithsonian Evacuation," and he repeatedly identifies the great one-armed Civil War hero as "John Weslely Howell" before he is corrected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPX6qg4zZRI

Finally, well, this one left me shaking my head. Nowhere in that Egyptology class I took did I learn that the Biblical Joseph--son of Jacob and the guy with all those jealous siblings--was actually the legendary iconic Egyptian architect, Imhotep. Moreover, he was one of the actual "Kings of Egypt"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltGRqnbZW8

>Ancient Egyptians Came To America, So Did Joseph, And He Was Their King!

It's probably best to exercise care in watching these and try to avoid drinking liquids if they might wind up on your computer screen in an uncontrolled moment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/2015 04:02AM by SL Cabbie.