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Book of Mormon/Geography/New World/Great Lakes geography/Mound Builders: Difference between revisions
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:It would not be a bad plan to compare Mr. Stephens' ruined cities with those in the Book of Mormon: Light cleaves to light and facts are supported by facts. The truth injures no one...." {{ref|ts3:23}} | :It would not be a bad plan to compare Mr. Stephens' ruined cities with those in the Book of Mormon: Light cleaves to light and facts are supported by facts. The truth injures no one...." {{ref|ts3:23}} | ||
It is true that the moundbuilders culture was the most advance one, but critics should consider that if someone | It is true that the moundbuilders culture was the most advance one, but critics should consider that if someone attempt to write a book about a history of the North American indians, he or she would not have written about advance civilizations with advance technology due that there were no known remains of it in the 1830s. | ||
Critics should also reconsider that if Joseph Smith taugh the Book of Mormon was a history of the Moundbuilders, it would give greater authencity to the Book of Mormon due to that there were advance civilizations with advance technology in America. There is no church doctrine, position, nor Book of Mormon statement that Book of Mormon events took place in the United States. | Critics should also reconsider that if Joseph Smith taugh the Book of Mormon was a history of the Moundbuilders, it would give greater authencity to the Book of Mormon due to that there were advance civilizations with advance technology in America. There is no church doctrine, position, nor Book of Mormon statement that Book of Mormon events took place in the United States. | ||
Revision as of 03:41, 1 July 2008
This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.
Criticism
Critics claim that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon to explain local legends associated with the "Moundbuilders" of the Eastern United States.
Source(s) of the criticism
- Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), Chapter 3. ( Index of claims )
- Robert Silverberg, The Mound Builders (Ohio University Press, 1986), 68-73.
- Stephen Williams, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991)
Response
Background
The presence of numerous burial mounds in the eastern United States was the source of great speculation to those that settled there. The construction of such mounds was not considered to be within the ability of the Native Americans, who were considered to be savages. It was assumed that such sophisticated constructions constituted evidence of a long lost, highly civilized society which had long since vanished. Some even postulated the existence of separate civilized and a savage societies, with the highly civilized group eventually being destroyed by the savage one. After years of research, however, it was concluded that the mounds had indeed been constructed by the ancestors of the Indians that continued to live in the area.
The Book of Mormon and the Mound Builders
When the Book of Mormon appeared, it was a natural assumption by many that the book was the story of the mysterious "Mound Builders." Joseph Smith himself initially believed that the presence of the mounds supported the story related in the Book of Mormon. In fact, as Zion's Camp passed through southern Illinois, Heber C. Kimball and several other participants claimed that Joseph identified a set of bones discovered in one of these mounds as "Zelph", a "white Lamanite." In a letter that Joseph wrote to Emma the day after this discovery, he stated:
- The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity, and gazing upon a country the fertility, the splendour and the goodness so indescribable, all serves to pass away time unnoticed.[1]
Joseph Smith's belief regarding Book of Mormon lands
At this point in time, Joseph clearly believed the region of the mounds to be part of Book of Mormon lands. The Book of Mormon itself, however, makes no mention of mounds.
In 1841, the Times and Seasons, of which Joseph was the editor at the time, commented on a popular book by John Lloyd Stephens called Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan. This book described amazing ruined cities that had been found in Central America. The Times and Seasons article stated:
- It would not be a bad plan to compare Mr. Stephens' ruined cities with those in the Book of Mormon: Light cleaves to light and facts are supported by facts. The truth injures no one...." [2]
It is true that the moundbuilders culture was the most advance one, but critics should consider that if someone attempt to write a book about a history of the North American indians, he or she would not have written about advance civilizations with advance technology due that there were no known remains of it in the 1830s.
Critics should also reconsider that if Joseph Smith taugh the Book of Mormon was a history of the Moundbuilders, it would give greater authencity to the Book of Mormon due to that there were advance civilizations with advance technology in America. There is no church doctrine, position, nor Book of Mormon statement that Book of Mormon events took place in the United States.
Conclusion
Endnotes
- [note] Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984), p. 324.
- [note] Times and Seasons Vol 3, No. 23, p. 927
David A. Palmer, In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the Book of Mormon from Ancient Mexico (Bountiful: Horizon, 1981) 22, 81-86
Further reading
FAIR wiki articles
FAIR web site
- FairMormon Topical Guide: Zelph FairMormon link
- FairMormon Topical Guide: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon FairMormon link
External links
- Diane E. Wirth, "Review of Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory by Stephen Williams," FARMS Review of Books 4/1 (1992): 251–253. off-site
- John L. Sorenson, "Review of Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory by Stephen Williams," FARMS Review of Books 4/1 (1992): 254–257. off-site
Printed material
- David A. Palmer, In Search of Cumorah (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1981),82 ISBN 0882907832