DiscussMormonism.com

They say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That's true enough, but what about when there is not an absence of evidence at all, but the evidence that is there points to a different conclusion?

At some level, the question "Did the Book of Mormon events really happen?" is sort of the wrong question. The right question becomes "What is the story of Ancient America, its peopling, and the various migrations and civilizations that arose there?"

Read this article on the discovery of Maya writing that was more ancient than that previously discovered.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10724962/

The glyphs date back to around 250 BC. Now, does this article directly address whether Nephites or Lamanites existed, and wrote, using a modified script derived from Egyptian? No, not at all. As far as the mopologists are concerned, this is yet another "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" kind of thing. Hope is held out that someday in the future they'll finally find the reformed Egyptian writing.

But what can we learn from this article that in fact really does bear on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Well, for one thing, we know that there is in fact a story, and there are actors, and there is evidence, and we learn that this story, these actors, and this evidence, are not part of the Book of Mormon story.

Scientists are consistently, over time, building out more and more of the story of the Ancient Americas, and the Book of Mormon story simply isn't a part of it.

Can we prove the Nephites never existed and wrote in a modified Egyptian? No. But we can prove that the Maya existed, and wrote in something entirely and completely different.

I think this is a pretty huge story, really. The Book of Mormon isn't disproven by an absence of evidence, but it is being gradually and unmistakeably disproven by an abundance of evidence of something else instead. It's like with the DNA thing. Sure, so DNA tests can't prove that Native Americans don't come from ancient Israel. But they don't have to. They prove that the ancient Americans came from Siberia instead. It's disproof by exclusion.

With the ever-clearer fact of a Mayan writing system completely unrecognizeable as any kind of derivative of Egyptian, more and more bizarre and desperate explanations are needed to explain why there's never any Egyptian writing, and quite a few examples of something else.

But that can't be. Charles Dowis has assured me repeatedly that the Mayans left no written record at all.

But you see Seth, the problem here is that as long as a Book of Mormon people and culture still remains plausible to the tiniest degree, the apologists will maintain victory.

Sure, perhaps what they have found so far paints a different picture than the Book of Mormon, but perhaps they just haven't looked in the right place. Much of South America is either undiscovered or has not yet been studied. As long as there is any minuscule unexamined place in South America, apologists will claim that we just haven't looked in the right places yet. Thus, absence of evidence STILL doesn't mean evidence of absence. And a different picture just means we are looking in the wrong place. Plausibility is maintained and the church is still true.

setbag, this exclusion theory only works if there are a limited number of slots, and you fill those slots with something else.

Saying that the Maya had a writing system around 200B.C. does not say that Nephites didn't have one at 600 B.C.

charity wrote:setbag, this exclusion theory only works if there are a limited number of slots, and you fill those slots with something else.

Saying that the Maya had a writing system around 200B.C. does not say that Nephites didn't have one at 600 B.C.

It does if the Maya are proposed to have been Nephites, because it would show that their writing system wasn't consistent with the Nephite writing system, which covered that same time period.

The exclusion theory does indeed work if there are a limited number of slots. The thing is, by trying to equate Nephites and Lamanites with actual, known ancient American populations, like, say, Olmecs, Maya, and whoever else, then the more specifics we learn about these civilizations, the more limited the still-available slots become. As these slots are filled up with things inconsistent with Nephites, Lamanites, and Jaredites, the theories required to continue justifying Nephites, Lamanites, and Jaredites become more and more constrained.

At first it was Hemispheric model, now we've been constrained to something like LGT.

I've seen a "Limited Writing System Theory" of sorts proposed, where normal, non-Egyptian Mayan was the everyday, common language of the people, but the "priestly" classes used their own, very limited in scope special language, which of course is hypothesized to be Egyptian. See how constrained we're becoming as the facts come in? Due to unpleasant facts and discoveries, we can't even believe now that the Nephites were both A) Mayan, and B) actually spoke the language Nephi and Moroni and the others who contributed to the plates wrote in.

Now we're constrained in terms of the territorial extent of the Book of Mormon civilization, but we're also constrained on their language. What are we going to be constrained on next? Are we finally going to be treated to an apologetic argument that there was only ever like 3 or 4 Nephites at a time, who lived in an as-yet undiscovered cave somewhere, and only fantasized that they were kings and judges, and wrote those sections as a sort of roleplaying game they were involved in? And meanwhile, around them swirled the development, growth, and eventual decay of the entire indigenous population, completely oblivious to this group of 3 or 4 Israelites hidden away in their midst?

There are a limited number of slots for a couple of reasons, due to the background information on population given in the Book of Mormon. I'm not talking about the numbers given, but the social complexity described (layers of bureaucracy and the idea of a poor lower class) that are predicated upon a certain level of population. Mesoamerica was the only place on the American continents that had the necessary population levels to create that sort of social complexity (ignoring, for the moment, that the Book of Mormon actually describes the type of complex polity that didn't occur til Aztec times).

This is why LDS apologists insist it happened in Mesoamerica. It's the only option. On top of that, while Mesoamerica did have polities that were almost as socially complex as the Book of Mormon, it was only the most powerful polities in the region that had reached that level that early. They were the very polities that set the path of cultural evolution in Mesoamerica in the first place, which is why it defies reason to suggest they could have been Judeo-christian.

I'll make do with assuming the Book of Mormon isn't ancient by common sense until someone provides enough compelling reasons to think otherwise.

Great post Seth and Beastie.

I don't believe most apologists feel in their hearts that there is any Book of Mormon culture that will spring up before archaeologists in the future. The idea is held up purely as polemic position. It does not fit as a realistic expectation.

If a family looses a loved one to an ocean vessel going down, I suppose its possible to maintain that the family member is still alive since the corpse was not found. Even if all survivors were pulled from the water within hours of the ships sinking, it could be maintained that this single individual was rescued by an island tribe as they were out "deep water" fishing. This family member is alive and well, but just can't make contact with the outside world due to their current island isolation.

The Book of Mormon people were immense in size. Finding their unique signature in the future is like holding to the idea that there are still undiscovered continents to be found.

If anyone is to happen upon the Book of Mormon remains, it is going to be the Verizon guy in the grey outfit. He covers every square mile on this continent, "Can you hear me now"?

Scottie:
But you see Seth, the problem here is that as long as a Book of Mormon people and culture still remains plausible to the tiniest degree, the apologists will maintain victory.

This is precisely the task of the apologist, to come up with scenarios that allow even the tiniest plausibility that the story could have happened as written.

To me it's like a defense lawyer, whose job is to create the tiniest bit of doubt in the minds of the jurors, by coming up with elaborate scenarios (however unlikely and illogical) to explain how an incident could have possibly happened in a way that exonerates the client, while still being consistent (even in a convoluted way) with the large amount of evidence pointing towards guilt. He succeeds by giving even one juror, who might want to believe in the client's innocence, a path to belief. Of course it really helps to have the fallback position of telling them to ignore the evidence and go with what their feelings tell them.

Maxrep wrote:Great post Seth and Beastie.

The Book of Mormon people were immense in size. Finding their unique signature in the future is like holding to the idea that there are still undiscovered continents to be found.

I also see the many similarities to the 10 lost tribes of Israel -- it has been a long time since I have heard the missing tribe theory, with their records of Christ's visitation coming from some mysterious land to the north... possibly they are still on the north pole preparing a museum with all of the missing nephite and jaradire ruins... man that would be a fun day !!