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Date: August 08, 2011 02:50PM
Where the BofM imaginary stories allegedly occurred is becoming divisive among some LDS members. It used to be commonly claimed that the BofM encompassed the entire western hemisphere of both North and South America, with Cumorah in New York being the location of the final battle.
Today there are two major geographical ideas. The first is that all of the BofM events played out in a very limited region of Meso-America. This requires two hill Cumorahs, one in Meso-America where the events happened and the second one in New York where the plates were buried.
The other idea is known as the Heartland theory. It proposes that the BofM events played out in the region of the United States, with only one hill Cumorah for the final battle at the same location where Joseph Smith claimed to have found the gold plates.
Instead of examining which of these geographical theories might or might not fit the BofM and early LDS writings, lets consider how neither can possibly agree with reality, based on what is now known about the development of agriculture, metallurgy and civilization in both North and South America.
Mormon ideas and manure
The BofM describes the peopling of America beginning about 2200 BC with the Tower of Babel and the Jaradites. It says they used watertight barges made of wood. The story includes magic glowing stones for light inside these windowless submarines.
Agricultural seeds, honey bees and flocks of animals from the Near East were transported to America. They also brought plants used for livestock feed. It does not say what these plants and animals were but the BofM claims that after their arrival in America, the Jaradites lived with elephants, horses, swine, sheep, cattle and asses.
The fictional people from Lehi began around 600 BC in Israel and they too made a transoceanic crossing. This group mentions seeds and grains including barley and wheat in America as well as horses and chariots, iron, copper, brass, steel, gold and silver.
A third group also came from Jerusalem to America approximately 580 BC. They are commonly called the Mulekites. These were the people who encountered the last surviving Jaradite. The Mulekites became assimilated with the people of Lehi.
Great civilizations were from these people, based on agriculture, livestock and metallurgy. Full scale warfare also happened, bringing the destruction of these civilizations.
The BofM "prophesied" that after the Europeans were to arrive beginning with Columbus, America's indigenous people would be driven, scattered and destroyed, but not all of them. They would eventually "blossom as the rose" and be restored from their devolved and degenerate condition to their former Christian state of advanced civilization. They would be nurtured and carried by the "gentiles" until then, meaning the European colonizers of the Americas would be "nursing fathers and mothers".
The BofM is supposedly written for the descendants of these fallen and depraved people, so that they will know their real ancestors, will become LDS and be restored to their place in "the Lord's true church".
Mormonism teaches that the second coming of Jesus will not happen until after America's indigenous people have become righteous and respected.
The LDS had commonly thought that all of America's indigenous people came from the Near East, as written in the BofM. Many mormon scholars made allowance for "others" like the Mulekites, that came from Israel but whose records have not been revealed yet.
Since 2007 the meaning of "others" has been expanded. Mormon apologists now include descendants of ice-age people who crossed Beringia more than 10,000 years ago. They use these people who originated before Adam and Eve to explain the failure to find DNA signatures from the Near East.
The popular consensus among apologists is that DNA haplotypes from the fertile crescent have been diluted into a mass population of people whose ancestors anciently migrated into America out of Asia long before the Biblical timeline, even before Adam and Eve.
At the end of the day, all of these mormon ideas will turn a person's thoughts into manure. Even worse, an entire group of living people are degraded by this fictional pseudo-history.
The unique accomplishments and contributions to the world from America's first inhabitants are often ignored by LDS people if things are not in the BofM. If any accomplishments are acknowledged, they are falsely credited to people from the fertile crescent. This is a very harmful aspect of the BofM. The highjacking of culture and history in the name of a fraudulent religion that began in the 19th century needs to end.
Let's examine some of the most significant accomplishments made by America's indigenous people. These are things that get ignored because the facts do not fit the BofM religious myths.
Agriculture
To believe the BofM, one would conclude that Old World seeds, crops and animals were brought to America but disappeared before Columbus. Many LDS have reasoned that because the people turned against the God of the Bible and killed each other, they destroyed their own civilizations and caused their animals and crops to die off and disappear.
The reality is that agriculture developed independently in different parts of the world. For example, there is no book translated from magic golden plates describing people from Jerusalem taking seeds and knowledge into ancient China, teaching people there how to plant and grow crops. Plant domestications happened without the need for outsiders to bring an "advanced" method.
Independent plant domestication happened in South America, Meso-America and in Eastern North America, without cultural diffusion between these regions. It does not support the BofM fictional claim of Near Eastern domesticated plants brought to America and grown. Because indigenous American plants were domesticated in numerous locations without influence from other regions, none of the BofM geography models agree with agricultural reality.
The truth is that more than half of all the world's crops now in cultivation were first domesticated in the Americas long before the time periods alleged in the BofM stories. America's indigenous people have contributed more than 300 food crops to the world.
Until Columbus arrived, these plants were unknown to the rest of the world: avocados, lima beans, kidney beans, shell beans, string beans etc., chocolate, cassava, chicle, chilies, corn, hickory nuts, jicama, maple syrup, manioc, papayas, peanuts, pecans, peppers, persimmons, pineapples, potatoes, pumpkins, squashes, sunflower seeds, sweet potatoes, tapioca, tomatoes, vanilla and long-fiber cotton.
America's indigenous people were not only sophisticated botanists, they developed new types of corn through hybridization. They learned to plant corn, beans and squash together to reduce plant loss to insects. This ancient technique known as the three sisters is still used today, minimizing soil depletion and overuse of pesticides.
They developed irrigation and water conservation. They also domesticated alpaca, dogs, ducks, guineas pigs, honey bees, llama, turkeys and vicuna.
Some of the most important crops in the world today are corn, potatoes, manioc (a staple in parts of Africa) and the American sweet potato.
In the 21st century, a new food crop is being studied by NASA for long term space travel. It is none other than an ancient domesticated American plant called Chenopodium quinoa. It had been a staple of the Inca Empire for many centuries.
None of these plants or animals are mentioned in the BofM, and no BofM prophet predicted the agricultural contributions to the world that America's people would make. Instead, the mormon scriptures tell of a fallen and immoral people who needed the true church of the mormons to raise them back up before the second coming of christ.
The reality is that the world owes a debt of gratitude to America's indigenous people for their agricultural achievements.
Now let's examine some accomplishments that are acknowledged but wrongly attributed to people from the Near East.
Metallurgy
One of the oldest European ideas is that human progress is marked by when stone and metals were used. Christians tied it to the Bible, beginning with Adam about 6,000 years ago.
The stone, bronze and iron ages became theories in archaeology. It was thought that superior people first left the stone age and used metals. These same ones also invented agriculture, domesticated animals and used iron and wheels. Christians claimed that it all began in the Bible lands of the Fertile Crescent and then spread to the rest of the world. Scientists are now discovering how wrong these ideas have been.
People have been mining and cold working copper in the Great Lakes basin of North America for 7,000 years. They were doing this in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin before God made Adam and Eve according to the Bible. They used the copper for ornaments and trade items before they developed agriculture and domesticated crops. Archaeologists used to think that metal work only happened after civilizations began in the Near East.
Great Lakes copper is very pure. They did not melt it for casting in molds because it was easily shaped cold or by heating without needing to melt it.
South America worked with copper too. Because it is not as pure as in the Great Lakes region, Andean people discovered the process of smelting 4,000 years ago to separate the copper from the rock, as well as working with gold and silver. Archaeologists now know that many people throughout the world independently learned how to smelt. America did it without needing anyone from anywhere else in the world coming to them to teach them how.
By 400 AD the people in South America were making bronze. Andean mariners traded their metal work up and down the western coast and about 800 AD they taught the people of western Mexico how to smelt.
Mormon apologists and writers are quick to point out that metal was worked in the Americas, but this is often used to argue that the making of the gold plates was not impossible. Some writers suggest that the use of metal in America might be evidence that people from the Near East brought that art and knowledge to America.
Take a serious look at the timelines of the BofM compared to reality. Copper work in North America was being done even before the time of Adam and Eve. Copper smelting in South America happened before Lehi, but bronze was not made until nearly the end of the BofM stories and was not in the popular geography of Meso-America until long after the fictional stories had ended.
Consider the apologist's geography theories. No smelting was done in the region of the United States. So much for the heartland theory. Likewise, smelting and bronze making was not done in the region of Meso-America until nearly 400 years after the gold plates were allegedly buried and the civilization of Nephites destroyed. The Limited Geography Theory is not supported with metallurgy.
Ancient American metal work does not fit in with the BofM stories of fantasy, while reality does not get talked about when it does not support the BofM.
Writing
Writing is found in Meso-America. Pictographs expressed meaning and many were adapted to denote sound values. Apologists have grabbed onto this as evidence to support the BofM. But this is how writing independently began in all other places in the world that developed it.
Cuneiform record keeping began in Mesopotamia around 5000 years ago. It was later adapted for writing, then was replaced by the Phoenician alphabet beginning about 2,900 years ago.
There is something very unique in America that apologists rarely mention. Quipu were knotted cords of different colors that were used for record keeping in America, beginning at almost the same time that marks on clay tablets began in Mesopotamia.
A 4,600 year old quipu was found in South America which may be one of the earliest forms of communication in the world, roughly as old as the cuneiform of Mesopotamia.
America's people were doing the same thing as in Mesopotamia, but keeping records with knotted cords instead of marks on clay tablets. And they were doing this before the fictional Jaradites came. The quipu were also used for performing addition, subraction, multiplication and division, and as mnemonic devices, to help recall long passages of memorized material.
An elite class of people were taught to read and use the quipu. Ceremonies and gatherings were crucial because the record keepers shared information and history at these times. The Spanish considered the quipu to be idolatrous and destroyed many of them. They forbid ceremonies where information was shared. This was the same as destroying books.
Apologists promote the Mayan glyphs (which have no correspondence to BofM stories) while ignoring the quipu, a highly effective system for the Andean people and the Inca civilization. The earliest stages of record keeping in America happened before the BofM stories began, and in a geographical region outside of Meso-America. Imagine that!
Finally, let's examine accomplishments that happened after the final battle of fantasy in the BofM, after the people were supposedly reduced to barbarianism and wickedness and cursed for destroying god's people.
The BofM ends with descriptions of depraved and degenerate people who tortured and murdered each other, raped women and practiced cannabilism, even feeding women and children to their own husbands and fathers. It leaves the reader with the thought that America's indigenous people remained in that condition, waiting for the arrival of Columbus to bring the influence of Christianity. It leaves the reader thinking that the BofM and Joseph Smith were great things from God in order to improve America's indignous people.
LDS members might think they know the history of ancient America better because of the BofM, but how many mormons take an interest in real history and events between 421 AD and 1492? If America's people were truthfully described at the end of the BofM, it would seem that nothing of significance should have happened after Moroni buried the plates.
Some mormons might think that whatever happened during those centuries, it is not as important as what happened after God led Christian people to America beginning with Columbus. This is another harmful influence of mormonism. A writing of fiction causes otherwise reasonable people to think of human beings as degraded and with little accomplishment. It plants the idea that mormons hold the truth and can "save" these "depraved" ones.
Brain Surgery
America's indigenous people, these depraved and degenerate savages, were far more advanced in medicine and surgery than most people in the U.S. even know.
Scientists were collecting skulls to study the primitive races in America, and in the 1860s a very precise and neatly perforated prehistoric skull was found.
Ever since then, people have argued about what the holes were for. One of the most popular ideas is that the holes were made to let out demons.
It is now beginning to be realized that these holes were emergency surgery to remove shattered bone and clean out pooling blood after a blow to the head.
More trepanned skulls have been found in the Andean region of Peru than the rest of the world together. The skulls span two thousand years, from around 400 BC to AD 1500, showing improvements in surgical techniques and a remarkable increase in the survival of patients to a level that rivals that under today's surgeons.
In Europe and America in the 19th century and early 20th century, surgeons operating on the skull were lucky to save 25 per cent of patients. The Incas had a success rate of around 80 per cent, using stone age tools.
This was not in Meso-America or in the region of the United States, it was not in the locations of currently popular BofM geography models. The period after the BofM tales ended brought the most significant improvements in emergency medical surgeries and survival rates. The Andean people developed the methods into a medical art. This completely disagrees with the LDS stereotype of America's savage indigenous people after the final battle in the BofM.
Cahokia
The Mississippi and Ohio river valleys were the locations of ancient agriculture and cities. The Hopewell culture and Cahokia are some of the best examples.
Until La Salle's travels in the 1670s, no European had ever ventured into these areas.
Between 600 and 1400 AD, an ancient indigenous city was located near St. Louis. Today it is known as Cahokia. By the time La Salle visited it, it's glory had already faded nearly 300 years earlier.
A Catholic mission site was established at Cahokia in 1699. This was the first permanent European settlement on the Mississippi River, but the ancient city was not recognized or understood by the first Europeans.
In 1811 an American named Henry Brackenridge heard about some French monks living near large mounds. He visited them to see the ruins.
From a letter to Thomas Jefferson by Henry Brackenridge, July 25, 1813 -
"When I examined it in 1811, I was astonished that this stupendous monument of antiquity should have been unnoticed by any traveler"
The writers at that time did not know how recent or how old the ancient ruins were. Much was open to the imagination, and fiction such as the BofM was quite popular.
Monks Mound at Cahokia is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America. It is an echo of the most sophisticated prehistoric civilization north of Mexico. In 1250 AD the city was larger than London.
The people and culture of Cahokia had declined because of climate changes, but further to the south, de Vaca, de Sota and La Salle had seen many others still living the cultural ways as they had been in Cahokia before the mini ice-age began.
In the 1960s archaeologists discovered that the people of Cahokia had set up posts in circular arcs. These were used as a calendar to mark the solstice and perhaps the rising or setting of bright stars or constellations.
Today it is known as Woodhenge and had been built in the period from 900 to 1100 AD. One of the circles was 410 feet in diameter and had 48 posts. Each post was 15 to 20 inches in diameter and stood about 20 feet high.
The truth is quite different from mormon delusions of cursed dark skin people, depraved and wicked, killing and eating each other.
Mormon apostle Boyd K. Packer once stated "Some things that are true are not very useful." As an outsider to his faith, I can only see the harm that mormonism causes to all indigenous people in the Americas through the denigration of their history and culture.
Now apologists have created the MDL to defend their right to promote fiction no matter how harmful it is to America's first inhabitants. It seems the time is ripe for America's indigenous people, archaeologists, anthropologists, etc. to turn up the pressure in challenging the pseudo claims of mormonism.