Question For Mormon Archaeologists

I just stayed a night at a Marriott hotel…and perused the copy of “THE BOOK OF MORMON”…found in the nightttable. I understand that Mormon archaeologists have spent many years in the American SW, trying to find evidence of the lost hebraic civilization of the Americas.
Anyway, has anyone found evidence of the people mentioned in this book? What about people like Lehi, Coriantumer, Shiz, Moroni, etc.? Do they show up in inscriptions on temples, artefacts, etc.? Has the site of those big-ass battels been found? :eek:

I don’t have an answer; but this is a pretty interesting question. I’ve never met a Mormon with an interest in archaeology, although I’m sure they must exist somewhere.

Wouldn’t they want to investigate upstate New York as the site of the big battle, since that’s where Smith claimed to find the golden plates?

You could ask at Brigham Young University. You’re not the first to question.

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=25&previous=L3B1YmxpY2F0aW9ucy9ib29rb2Ztb3Jtb252aWV3LnBocA==

From the cite from DrFidelius:
…they frequently argue solely from the authority of selected authors or scholars, rather than providing evidence, analysis, and argumentation to support their case.

Heh… Oh my, the irony is getting so deep in here that I can hardly ty…

Your first statement is not AFAIK quite correct. Mormons don’t generally hang around the Southwest–well, except for the ones that live there; most favor Central America as a site for the events in the BoM. There are not many LDS archaeologists; there are not many Mormons, and the LDS Church does not sponsor archaeological efforts, unless through BYU. There are some, all right; just not many. Most LDS efforts do not aim at finding an inscription (“Welcome to Zarahemla!”), but on more general questions, such as cultural, linguistic, and geographical parallels. One thing, for example, that has people pretty happy is that where once people thought it was ridiculous to describe a river and an oasis on the Arabian peninsula, a river and two oases have been found in the right places to be the ones described in the BoM.

I don’t know a heck of a lot about BoM archaeology myself; it’s not a big interest of mine. Relatively few Mormons go in for archaeology in a big way, actually. For those that do, proof (in the sense of “incontrovertible evidence that the whole world would have to accept”) isn’t really expected. It’s more of a game for academics than anything else, because the BoM’s importance is held to be in its spiritual truths; Mormons expect personal revelatory confirmation of the BoM, and physical proof is almost irrelevant, because proving the BoM to be historical would not truly convert anyone to Christ. Mormons kind of figure that they could dig up all of Zarahemla, and the rest of the world still wouldn’t buy it, nor would any more people become converted. So any efforts are largely for our own amusement and satisfaction.

You should understand that Mormons do not AFAIK (as popular assumption would have it) think that the BoM people were the sole inhabitants of the American continents. Most, or at least the ones that write the books, think they were a pretty small population, which was intermingled with other native peoples. Mormons do not think that every old city in South America belonged to the Nephites.

And one more:

That is indeed where Smith said he found them. The LDS Church owns the hill, actually. However, it is not thought to be a place where BoM people lived, and I’ll tell you why. In the BoM, there is a major final battle wherein the Nephites are just about destroyed. The commander of the army, Moroni, is the son of Mormon, who abridged the records of his people into the Book of Mormon. Moroni takes his father’s book with him, and leaves the area, since his people are conquered and his enemies would be happy to kill him. He then wanders for about twenty years. At the end of that time, he puts in a last few words at the end of the book, and then buries it in a hill. Thus the hill where Joseph Smith found the plates is not considered to be the original Hill Cumorah of the last battle, but most likely quite far from there. You can walk a long way in 20 years. Joseph Smith never identified the hill of the plates as the Hill Cumorah; it appears to be an assumption on the part of another fellow, and the name stuck.

Upon reflection, I think I may have given a slightly inaccurate picture. I do not mean to say that practically no Mormons are interested in this stuff; I just want to show that it’s not paramount. However, BoM scholarship has become big stuff in the past 15-20 years; it’s been growing a lot. Lots of books and papers and so on are generated, but most are only read by a small segment of the American LDS populace.

But, if you’d like to know more, you may enjoy the following titles, obtainable through your friendly neighborhood public library and the magic of InterLibrary Loan:

By the hand of Mormon, by Terryl Givens. The latest academic and secular study of the BoM.

Echoes and evidences of the Book of Mormon, ed. by Parry, Peterson, and others. An LDS work summarizing and describing “stuff Joseph Smith got right against the odds.”

Go into an LDS bookstore sometime–they don’t bite–and take a look at the academics section, see what kind of stuff LDS scholars produce. It’ll be educational. :stuck_out_tongue: Enjoy!

I also wonder about the illustrations in the BOM…there is a picture in there (proportedly of Moroni), wearing a vikink helmet, with a Roman breastplate, and hebrew-looking stuff around him. Hasn’t anybiody dug up any mormon armor, swords, etc.? And what about the skeletons of the horses, camels, elephants, etc., that were roaming around upstate New York? :eek:

There’s a fascinating book about Thomas Stuart Ferguson, a man who decided to start an archaeological foundation specifically to search for Book of Mormon evidences in Central America. He went so far as to bet, sometime in the 1950’s, that within ten years they would have conclusive proof of the location of the Book of Mormon. He never found anything and apparently became disillusioned.

Ah, here’s the book. Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson’s Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon.

Others remain convinced that the proof is still there and just has yet to be found. Still others, like John Sorenson, have proposed theories about various locations they believe fit the Book of Mormon’s events. An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon is one of his books. Personally, I think his ideas are a bit hard to believe.

There’s an entire organization at BYU, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, or FARMS, dedicated to studying this sort of thing.

Heh. See, those were painted in the 50’s by a fellow named Friberg. And he liked muscles, I guess, since even the 10-yo boy and the elderly lady look like they could bend steel. Authoritative (or accurate) they ain’t, but we’re all used to them. Most people know, however, that they bear little or no resemblance to reality (for example, there’s one of a fellow on top of a 40-foot wall that looks a lot like Chichen Itza, but the actual BoM account talks about earthworks ‘the height of a man,’ and never mentions any stone walls.) They were the first illustrations ever done for the BoM–up until then, the Church tended to shy away from images, especially of Christ, and it took until the late 70’s or so for that to really become common–and there are better-quality paintings/art being produced now. But those Friberg paintings are owned by the Church, and they’re traditional, goshdarnit! :slight_smile:

As for artifacts, no. And again, we don’t really expect to.

So you didn’t read my paragraph about the Nephites not living in New York? :dubious: As for that, there are several possibilities (as well as other things) that are both out of my area and a bit weighty for GQ. If you really want to know, I can probably dig something up. Or you could email me.