From My Informant: Has Ugo Perego Been "Exiled" to Rome?

[_Blixa]

I honestly don't know why you are pursuing this point, Chap.

[_Kishkumen]

I honestly don't know why you are pursuing this point, Chap.

I have noticed a definite uptick in Chap's tendency to bust my boxes.

[_Chap]

The Siberians are the Jaredites, silly! ;-)

Invaders often call the land they steal empty. That doesn't mean much.

Could you illustrate what you mean by a couple of historical examples, preferably with links to source texts?

And of course we need examples where invaders claim there is nobody there at all, not just a few insignificant people and where we have independent grounds for knowing that there was a substantial pre-existing population on the land.

That was a polite enough request, and a reasonable one, or so it seemed to me. I phrased it as I did because we are in a thread where someone had raised the question of whether the Book of Mormon presumes that at the time of Lehi's arrival there was a signficant pre-existing population in place in the Americas.

But it did not cheer up Kishkumen at all, it seems. Skipping the less urbane bits of the exchange that followed, I now get a response:

That's something different from Kishkumen's reference to invaders claiming that a land is empty, when it is not - which in the context of this board is presumably to be understood as referring to the fact that Lehi and company seem to think they have arrived in a country devoid of inhabitants.

The Latin phrase terra nullius means 'the land of nobody', and refers to the claim that nobody has ownership of the land in question. By saying, for instance, that Australia was terra nullius, people from Europe were not claiming that there was nobody there (there obviously was, and they were seen as a nuisance), but rather that there was nobody who owned the land, as opposed to wandering about on it in a state of nature.

Of course pre-colonization populations in some parts of the world were, by modern European standards, relatively sparse, so that it could reasonably be said that there was a lot of empty land to be exploited, without denying that there was a pre-existing population. But again that is not the kind of claim that needs to be made to deal with the case of Lehi and his group, who were in any case hardly in a position to take over the land of anybody inclined to resist.

I am sorry to see that I have betrayed Kishkumen into the sins of wrath and profanity. But as I understand it nobody on this board gets to make assertions and then demand that other people should spare them the trouble of documenting what they wish to assert.

Yes, Chap, we all know the high standards of scholarship that are demanded on this recreational discussion board and expect everyone to be a jackass about others not providing citations. What a tool.

The terra nullius concept is a legal outgrowth of preexisting attitudes that colonial powers had toward colonized peoples. It is true that there is a difference between the land belonging to no one and the land not having anyone on it, but the initial denial was more along the lines of the latter. The New World was commonly described as virgin territory that was waiting there to be exploited. Even in the case of Mormon colonization of Utah, the settlers exaggerated the degree to which they were blazing a new trail and had found an empty place to call their own.

In Greek colonization stories earlier settlements, evidence of which exists in the archaeological record, are routinely ignored, while the Greeks portray themselves as the ones bringing civilization. The foundation myth of Rome naturally ignores the Iron Age settlements in favor of a fairytale about a hero founder named Romulus. It is characteristic in ancient Greco-Roman literature to focus on the hero-founder at the expense of accuracy, largely because historical accuracy was not on anyone's mind. The hero-founder was often the object of religious cult. I can easily conceive of a fairly decent apologetic argument about the Book of Mormon's treatment of pre-existing populations having a theological purpose of sorts. But then, I don't believe the Book of Mormon to be ancient.

For example, it is obvious that the book does not claim that NO ONE was there before Lehi, because it goes on to show who WAS there, and spends an entire section of the work recounting the history of those people. Duh. The question is whether one should hold the book to historical accuracy in a generic situation where, according to the standards of dealing with such matters up to fairly recent times, no such expectation is warranted. In other words, to claim that this particular problem, that there are inaccurate depictions of the population situation in the Book of Mormon, is a slam dunk against its authenticity only betrays the historical illiteracy of the person making the criticism.

This is all pretty routine stuff and hardly controversial. If you are interested in learning rather than behaving like a two-bit lawyer you can look it up.

My idea of recreation does not include the respectful absorption of irritable and dogmatic one-liners by people who take it for granted that reasonable dissent from their point of view, or even any questioning of it, or request for justification, is ridiculous. As for being 'interested in learning', I am just about able to manage to learn things without needing Kishkumen to set me research assignments.

I look forward to hearing of a significant early European account of the Americas that says they were uninhabited. I don't think Kishkumen will be able to find one very easily.

On heroes - Rome's founding myth may be a good example of the' founding hero' variety of pseudo-history. But is it a good parallel to the conventional 'pre-genetics' reading of the Book of Mormon as one where Lehi and his party meet nobody in their new home? Livy says of the actual spot where the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus were found "[it was] where the Ficus Ruminalis (said to have been formerly called Romularis) now stands. The locality was then a wild solitude." But the text that precedes and follows presumes that the general area where Rome was founded was previously a site of human activity, with cult centres on some of the surrounding hills, even if the actual foundation of a settlement was due to Romulus.

I don't see the story of Lehi and party, told circumstantially and in the first person by Nephi, as much of a parallel to Greco-Roman foundation myths. (By the way, I did not say that there was nobody else in the land when Lehi and party arrived - merely that they seemed to think there was not.). I agree that the Book of Mormon is in any case nothing like a historical text, even if it is next to impossible to respond to some apologists without treating it as if it was , if only to exhibit the consequences that follow from such an assumption.

I don't know whether Kishkumen is saying that I think that the presence of "inaccurate depictions of the population situation in the Book of Mormon, is a slam dunk against its authenticity". I don't, or at least not in those terms. What I do feel is that it is only with extreme difficulty that apologists can sustain the case that the Book of Mormon leaves room for substantial pre-existing populations being in place and active at the time that Lehi's party (and later Mulek's party, who found one surviving Jaredite) arrived from the Middle East. That makes it very difficult for them to deal with the genetics of native populations in the Americas, and that is a major point of failure, if not a 'slam dunk'

[_Buffalo]

Argument from ignorance. And the official doctrine is, the land was empty.

2 Nephi 1:6

Wherefore, I, Lehi, prophesy according to the workings of the Spirit which is in me, that there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.

8 And behold, it is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance.

Still no preclusion. How do you know others were not brought by the hand of the Lord? And who said what was there qualifies as "many nations" to the extent the land is full and overrun?

The fact of the matter is that you have absolutely nothing.

It still doesn't matter. It's official doctrine that the land was empty. It's based off of those scriptures.

Do I need to quote your favorite quote from president Press E. Release?

[_Kishkumen]

What I do feel is that it is only with extreme difficulty that apologists can sustain the case that the Book of Mormon leaves room for substantial pre-existing populations being in place and active at the time that Lehi's party (and later Mulek's party, who found one surviving Jaredite) arrived from the Middle East. That makes it very difficult for them to deal with the genetics of native populations in the Americas, and that is a major point of failure, if not a 'slam dunk'

Where I agree with Chap is that, regardless of the representations concerning an initial population, it gets more difficult to sustain the plausibility of the DNA argument as things go along. Is it, however, impossible?

Up front, I would say I am not a geneticist, nor do I have anything more than the most rudimentary knowledge of genetics, so I have no idea how plausible the idea of vanishing DNA is. Does the DNA of a small group of Israelites get essentially wiped out by intermixing with a larger population of predominantly Asiatic origins? I don't know.

It is conceivable that a theologically driven history is not interested in factually representing the genetic origins of all of the people in the group. In the case of the Book of Mormon, it is clear that people voluntarily take up identities for social, political, and religious reasons. After the utopian, post-Christ-visit period, as the society is depicted as declining, the people once again start to separate themselves into different groups of "x-ites." Are these groupings based on genealogy or other factors? I would say that a straight genealogical explanation is almost inconceivable.

This probably says something about the meaning of Nephite and Lamanite throughout the text, or at least it should.

Although I continue to find the idea of an ancient Book of Mormon implausible in the extreme, I just don't think that, on the textual end, one can say much about the representation of different groups in terms of their genetic relationships to supposed forebears. It simply does not work. The text itself, as it lays out the terms for defining identity, does not support a genetic reading of identity for these "x-ites."

[_Kishkumen]

I have a moment on my hands, so let me admit defeat in the question of whether anyone has said that the colonial powers depicted the New World as empty:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naal7/contents/a/welcome.asp#1

The “new world” that Columbus boasted of to the Spanish monarchs in 1500 was neither an expanse of empty space nor a replica of European culture, tools, textiles, and religion, but a combination of Native, European, and African people living in complex relation to one another.

Estala began his survey by borrowing de Pauw's dismal view of the New World. America was portrayed as a cold, wet, degenerating environment, and the natives as effeminate, monstrous, insensitive creatures. Whereas for de Pauw these views were linked to an attack on Spanish colonialism, Estala linked them to a patriotic defense of the nation. De Pauw gave the impression that the Europeans had found an almost empty land, barely populated. (How to write the history of the New World, p. 130)

The presence of indigenous people or civilizations is repressed, thus ordaining the European explorer, the "seeing-man" whose "imperial eyes passively look out," to possess paradise's "empty" yet "abundant" interior.(Paradise Discourse, Imperialism, and Globalization: Exploiting Eden, p. 33)

I have not had much time to look these up. It took me all of several minutes to find these two references, suggesting to me that if Chap had taken the trouble, he would have found them too.

[_Darth J]

Could you cite chapter and verse where the Nephites encounter the descendents of Siberian nomads?

Just as soon as you cite chapter and verse which precludes the Nephites from having done so. Brackite's verses didn't do it. What else do you have?
lol

What precludes it are the LDS teachings that the human race entered mortality circa 4,000 B.C. with Adam and Eve, and that the entire human race except for 8 people on Noah's ark was wiped out in a global flood after that.

The people of Siberian origin who emigrated to the Americas lived thousands of years before Adam and Eve, and continued to live after the time when they would have been drowned with everyone else on Earth in Noah's flood. This makes it impossible within the LDS view of human history for the Nephites to have encountered these people. If the LDS view of history was true, then these people would never have existed.

P.S. I'm really not interested in your reverse Planet of the Apes ad hoc apologetic desperation. When your are just making up stories to fill in plot holes, with no basis in fact or otherwise to believe it, you don't get to call it a "theory."

[_Kishkumen]

Wow! One of my posts on this thread absolutely evaporated. I cannot find it anywhere.

[_Drifting]

Wow! One of my posts on this thread absolutely evaporated. I cannot find it anywhere.

Was it so righteous it got 'translated'?

[_Kishkumen]

Wow! One of my posts on this thread absolutely evaporated. I cannot find it anywhere.

Was it so righteous it got 'translated'?

Highly doubtful.