Zone1 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the only true and living Church today

[Cougarbear]

Smithsonian Institution Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon​

Some Latter-day Saints, in their zeal to give tangible authenticity to the Book of Mormon, have told prospective converts that the Smithsonian Institution has used the Book of Mormon to verify sites in the New World. In response to numerous requests on this subject, the Smithsonian has issued the following paper detailing their position on the matter.
Information from the National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560
Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon

1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide. Smithsonian archaeologists see no direct connection between the archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.
2. The physical type of the American Indian is basically Mongoloid, being most closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia. Archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Indians came into the New World — probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age — in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.
3. Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they reached Mexico or Central America.
4. One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little significance for the development of American Indian civilizations, is the fact that none of the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred in the New World in pre-Columbian times. American Indians had no wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, camels before 1492. (Camels and horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time the early big game (sic) hunters spread across the Americas.)
5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was worked used (sic) in various locations in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, but not iron.
6. There is a possibility that the spread of cultural traits across the Pacific to Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began several hundred years before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric contacts appear to have been the results of accidental voyages originating in eastern and southern Asia. It is by means certain that even such contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asia and the Near East.
7. No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archaeology, and no expert on New World prehistory, has discovered or confirmed any relationship between archaeological remains in Mexico and archaeological remains in Egypt.
8. Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland.
9. There are copies of the Book of Mormon in the library of the National Museum, of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
10. 
    
11. Smithsonian Institution Statement Regarding the Book of Mormon – Mormonism Research Ministry

I don't know if you noticed but this article was in 1980, 43 years ago...I'm sure that any rebuttal for you would need to be from a scholar. So, I'm providing you this. Hopefully, you will do your due diligence when studying this rebuttal. Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon

Here is an opening statement by the author scholar, Jeff Lindsey..."Several items in the Smithsonian Statement suggest that Old World contacts with the New World did not occur or were insignificant if they occurred at all. This view represents an entrenched but outdated paradigm still shared by many scholars, but is now strongly and persuasively disputed by an increasing number of reputable non-LDS scholars. Dogmatic dismissals of Old World contact can no longer be taken at face value."

Here is one area for instance that should interest you from the website: "Unfortunately, the paradigm of "no transoceanic contact" is so entrenched that significant evidence of ancient transoceanic contact between the New and Old Worlds is ignored because "everyone knows" that it did not occur. For example, the Discovery Channel recently broadcast a fascinating documentary called " Curse of the Cocaine Mummies" on Jan. 13, 1997 (9 p.m. Eastern time). Several years ago, Dr. Svetla Balabanova discovered cocaine and nicotine in ancient Egyptian mummies (a published source is S. Balabanova, F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig, "First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies," Natur Wissenschaften, Vol. 79, No. 8, 1992, p. 358 ff.). The scholarly community was disturbed with her findings, for it would suggest that the Egyptians had imported coca and tobacco from the New World. Since they "knew" that there was no ancient contact between the two continents, the chemical analysis of the mummies must be faulty, they assumed, or the samples must have been contaminated by substances from modern people. Additional controlled tests clearly established that the mummies really did have cocaine and tobacco in them that could not be explained by contamination (present inside hair shafts, present deep in the intestines, etc.). Much of the program featured various experts speculating on possible trade between Egypt and the Americas, with several stuffy experts denying the possibility of such contact since it contradicted what they were so sure they "knew." (So much for the scientific method!) In spite of clear evidence that the ancient Egyptians were using a product that comes only from the New World, several experts chose to laugh off the evidence on the basis of their paradigm of no ancient contact between the two continents. One expert said that the findings had to be discounted because we all know there is no evidence of ancient contact. In other words, evidence that does not fit the paradigm cannot be considered as evidence, ensuring that the dogmatic paradigm stays in place. (Kuhn's Science and Revolution is worth reading on this phenomenon, which I have witnessed many times in science.)"

 

[Hector12]

I don't know if you noticed but this article was in 1980, 43 years ago...I'm sure that any rebuttal for you would need to be from a scholar. So, I'm providing you this. Hopefully, you will do your due diligence when studying this rebuttal. Response to the Smithsonian Institute Statement on the Book of Mormon

Here is an opening statement by the author scholar, Jeff Lindsey..."Several items in the Smithsonian Statement suggest that Old World contacts with the New World did not occur or were insignificant if they occurred at all. This view represents an entrenched but outdated paradigm still shared by many scholars, but is now strongly and persuasively disputed by an increasing number of reputable non-LDS scholars. Dogmatic dismissals of Old World contact can no longer be taken at face value."

Here is one area for instance that should interest you from the website: "Unfortunately, the paradigm of "no transoceanic contact" is so entrenched that significant evidence of ancient transoceanic contact between the New and Old Worlds is ignored because "everyone knows" that it did not occur. For example, the Discovery Channel recently broadcast a fascinating documentary called " Curse of the Cocaine Mummies" on Jan. 13, 1997 (9 p.m. Eastern time). Several years ago, Dr. Svetla Balabanova discovered cocaine and nicotine in ancient Egyptian mummies (a published source is S. Balabanova, F. Parsche, and W. Pirsig, "First Identification of Drugs in Egyptian Mummies," Natur Wissenschaften, Vol. 79, No. 8, 1992, p. 358 ff.). The scholarly community was disturbed with her findings, for it would suggest that the Egyptians had imported coca and tobacco from the New World. Since they "knew" that there was no ancient contact between the two continents, the chemical analysis of the mummies must be faulty, they assumed, or the samples must have been contaminated by substances from modern people. Additional controlled tests clearly established that the mummies really did have cocaine and tobacco in them that could not be explained by contamination (present inside hair shafts, present deep in the intestines, etc.). Much of the program featured various experts speculating on possible trade between Egypt and the Americas, with several stuffy experts denying the possibility of such contact since it contradicted what they were so sure they "knew." (So much for the scientific method!) In spite of clear evidence that the ancient Egyptians were using a product that comes only from the New World, several experts chose to laugh off the evidence on the basis of their paradigm of no ancient contact between the two continents. One expert said that the findings had to be discounted because we all know there is no evidence of ancient contact. In other words, evidence that does not fit the paradigm cannot be considered as evidence, ensuring that the dogmatic paradigm stays in place. (Kuhn's Science and Revolution is worth reading on this phenomenon, which I have witnessed many times in science.)"

You're picking at straws. What matters is that there is no evidence that any of the events recorded in The Book of Mormon happened, and much reason to believe that none of it happened.

There is also the Book of Abraham. The document from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate it has been found. It is not a first person account by Abraham about his travels in Egypt. It does not mention Abraham at all. It mentions ancient Egyptian deities.

I cannot blame you for wishing that the Mormon faith was true. I wish it was too, If one is the kind of person that I am, Mormonism is a very appealing religion.

 

[surada]

Hebrews 1:1-2 doesn't say that prophets still aren't necessary. I would say Paul was still an apostle which is also a prophet for he certainly did prophesied. So did Peter and others. In fact, Jesus said that after he was gone, Peter would be the little rock or prophet whom Jesus would continue to speak and guide.
2Peter 1:3, "Was Peter talking to us today? No, he was talking to the people in his time. Read verse 5, "And beside this, fiving all diligence, ADD to your faith virtue; and to virtue KNOWLEDGE." See, all learning of God did not cease. Not until the last apostle was gone. That is when the old world fell into a great apostasy. There were still apostles in the America's until 421 AD when the Americas fell into the great apostasy as well.
Also, if you go down further to verses 19-21, "WE have also more sure word of prophecy; where unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Peter is saying prophecy still exists and we should be able to recognized it by way of the Holy Ghost. God is the same today as he was yesterday and forever. Yes, we need prophets today more than ever! We see Christian churches falling by the wayside by the devil's influence with transgender issues, homosexual issues, marriage out of wedlock issues and a whole bunch more! 40,000 Christian churches that many contradicting doctrine and ordinances against each other. Yes! It was time for the heavens to open up again and for the times of restitution of all things including prophets, seers, revelators and apostles with Christ the chief cornerstone.

"There were still apostles in the America's until 421 AD when the Americas fell into the great apostasy as well."

Until Joseph Smith came along to save the day. MAGA

 

[Cougarbear]

You're picking at straws. What matters is that there is no evidence that any of the events recorded in The Book of Mormon happened, and much reason to believe that none of it happened.

There is also the Book of Abraham. The document from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate it has been found. It is not a first person account by Abraham about his travels in Egypt. It does not mention Abraham at all. It mentions ancient Egyptian deities.

I cannot blame you for wishing that the Mormon faith was true. I wish it was too, If one is the kind of person that I am, Mormonism is a very appealing religion.

Did you study his rebuttal? No. So, you have no standing with the truth.

 

[Hector12]

Did you study his rebuttal? No. So, you have no standing with the truth.

Explain his rebuttal in your own words. If you cannot do that you do not understand it.

I can explain the Smithsonian account in my own words. The Book of Mormon describes domestic animals and plants as existing in the Americas, when we know they did not exist here until after the time of Columbus. The Book of Mormon claims that American Indians are descendants of Israelites, when DNA evidence connects them to people living today in northern Siberia.

The writings of the Mayans make no mention of events recorded in the Book of Mormon.

We have the manuscript from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham.

Credible Egyptian scholars have translated it. It has no mention of Abraham traveling in Egypt. Mention is made of ancient Egyptian deities.

 

[Cougarbear]

Explain his rebuttal in your own words. If you cannot do that you do not understand it.

I can explain the Smithsonian account in my own words. The Book of Mormon describes domestic animals and plants as existing in the Americas, when we know they did not exist here until after the time of Columbus. The Book of Mormon claims that American Indians are descendants of Israelites, when DNA evidence connects them to people living today in northern Siberia.

The writings of the Mayans make no mention of events recorded in the Book of Mormon.

We have the manuscript from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham.

View attachment 877106

Credible Egyptian scholars have translated it. It has no mention of Abraham traveling in Egypt. Mention is made of ancient Egyptian deities.

You did not read it so until you do, no need to go further. See, anti-Mormons will freeze when we stick up to date scholarship in their faces because they can only use very old outdated attacks like you have. If you truly value scholarship studies, then read.

 

[Hector12]

You did not read it so until you do, no need to go further. See, anti-Mormons will freeze when we stick up to date scholarship in their faces because they can only use very old outdated attacks like you have. If you truly value scholarship studies, then read.

The Mormon missionaries who proselytized me froze when I discussed reasons I rejected the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham.

The Mormon missionaries I have talked to since then have not been able to answer my questions either

 

[Cougarbear]

The Mormon missionaries who proselytized me froze when I discussed reasons I rejected the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham.

The Mormon missionaries I have talked to since then have not been able to answer my questions either

I gave you your answer. www.Jefflindsey.com. It is answered completely. If you want to go one question at a time, do it. I can answer your questions.

 

[Hector12]

I gave you your answer. www.Jefflindsey.com. It is answered completely. If you want to go one question at a time, do it. I can answer your questions.

How do you account for the fact that there is no independent evidence of any of the events written about in The Book of Mormon?

How do you account for the fact that the manuscript from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham makes no mention of Abraham, but mentions ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses?

Answer in your own words.

 

[Cougarbear]

How do you account for the fact that there is no independent evidence of any of the events written about in The Book of Mormon?

How do you account for the fact that the manuscript from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham makes no mention of Abraham, but mentions ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses?

Answer in your own words.


View attachment 877361

View attachment 877363

Read the website. The answer is there. This, I’ve accounted for it.

 

[Hector12]

Read the website. The answer is there. This, I’ve accounted for it.

I am not interested in wading through some salad of words written by someone else. This is between you and me. Answer my questions yourself.

 

[Cougarbear]

I am not interested in wading through some salad of words written by someone else. This is between you and me. Answer my questions yourself.

Of course you aren’t. You act like a scholar but not even close. You want the truth, do so with real intent rather than trying to destroy people’s testimonies with false information.

 

[Hector12]

Of course you aren’t. You act like a scholar but not even close. You want the truth, do so with real intent rather than trying to destroy people’s testimonies with false information.

What have I said about the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham that is not true?

 

[Cougarbear]

What have I said about the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham that is not true?

Everything. And, sometimes you say things that don’t have to have an answer. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There’s actually now lots of evidence since the Smithsonian’s 43 year old report. But, you won’t look at it.

 

[Cougarbear]

Did Joseph Smith teach you that from his self discovered "secret documents" that only he could see?

How very judgmental & ignorant of you.

Judgmental? Check the dictionary.

 

[Hector12]

Everything. And, sometimes you say things that don’t have to have an answer. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. There’s actually now lots of evidence since the Smithsonian’s 43 year old report. But, you won’t look at it.

If everything I said is not true it should be easy for you to find something I said that is not true, and mention it.

You don't report it because it is not there.

The architecture of American Indian civilizations shows no evidence of Semitic origins. The writing of American Indian civilians shows no evidence of Semitic origins.

There is Biblical archaeology. There is no Book of Mormon archaeology.

 

[Cougarbear]

If everything I said is not true it should be easy for you to find something I said that is not true, and mention it.

You don't report it because it is not there.

The architecture of American Indian civilizations shows no evidence of Semitic origins. The writing of American Indian civilians shows no evidence of Semitic origins.

There is Biblical archaeology. There is no Book of Mormon archaeology.

You say this because of the little knowledge you have. Apparently,I have much more. Start reading and you will too.

 

[Hector12]

You say this because of the little knowledge you have. Apparently,I have much more. Start reading and you will too.

Instead of claiming more knowledge you should demonstrate it.

You began this thread by claiming, "The Lord has only one true and living church. One reason The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a “living church” is that the living God reveals His will to living prophets and apostles."

When I called you out on this claim, you told me to read a long and turgid essay that you claimed substantiates your initial assertions.

Nevertheless, you are unable to explain the arguments used in that essay in your own words. That means that you do not understand it yourself.

I posted a much briefer and very lucid essay presented by the Smithsonian. Then I posted my own summary of that essay.

When I was proselytized by those two Mormon missionaries they told me that the ancient Egyptian manuscript from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham had been recently discovered.

At that time I still believed that the claims of Joseph Smith were likely to be true, but I needed more evidence. I asked for information about the ancient Egyptian manuscript.

I was given an article by Hugh Nimbly. As you probably know, Hugh Nimbly was a Mormon linguist who could read many ancient languages, including ancient Egyptian.

I expected Hugh Nimbly to have a proud, triumphal attitude, and to write, "Here is the proof we have been waiting for."

Instead Hugh Nimbly was troubled, and wrote about "the problem of the Book of Abraham."

I wondered "What problem? The manuscript either proves that Joseph Smith is an authentic prophet of God, or that he is a religious charlatan."

At the time I knew the Egyptian mummies were often buried with a document that is entitled "The Book of the Dead." I thought the manuscript Joseph Smith sounded like The Book of the Dead. Later on I found confirmation of my theory.

The consensus of non Mormon scholars of ancient Egypt is that the manuscript Joseph Smith had, and which has been re discovered, is The book of the Dead.

Even many Mormon scholars are becoming uneasy about the manuscript, as was Hugh Nimbly. When the manuscript was re discovered all Hugh Nimbly needed to do was to look at the manuscript to know that it told nothing about Abraham's travels in Egypt.

 

[Hector12]

[Mormonism is] a Cult of kid fuckers.

An assertion like that needs to be documented.

 

[Zincwarrior]

An assertion like that needs to be documented.

Ask the US Army
.