Columbus and the Book of Mormon

[_Craig Paxton]

Hey guys...as I remember, it was Magellan who got here first anyway...I just wish the bank and liquor store was open...

So a 12 year old Magellan discovered America? I've learned something new

[_moksha]

If it makes you feel any better, Salt Lake City renamed or added or amended today's holiday to the much more inclusive "Indigenous Peoples Day".

Not to be outdone by their less righteous neighboring city, the Provo City Council might well declare the second Tuesday of October to be "Descendants of Lehi Day".

[_Yahoo Bot]

There's an opinion in the WSJ today defending Columbus against presentism.

[_moksha]

Don't forget about Washington Irving's contribution:

So Irving embellished. He wrote what should have happened, what surely did happen even if the evidence had since disappeared. He did what historians had been doing since Herodotus: he made it up. He seamlessly wove fact and fiction together into a “clear and continued narrative.”

Well, that certainly explains why both Christopher Columbus and Leif Erickson were born of goodly parents and when in the fullness of time it came to pass that they did set sail upon the ocean blue.

by the way, today is also Leif Erickson day, named after one of the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

[_candygal]

Hey guys...as I remember, it was Magellan who got here first anyway...I just wish the bank and liquor store was open...

So a 12 year old Magellan discovered America? I've learned something new

Whoops...It wasn't stated as fact, it was something that I wrote a report on many moons ago in school. Sorry.....but still Craig...the liquor store was closed.....

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

There's an opinion in the WSJ today defending Columbus against presentism.

k
- doc

[_Gadianton]

Even then, people knew that Europeans, including Vikings and Portuguese fishing fleets, had visited or sighted North America before Columbus. And other explorers of Columbus’s era have better claims to “discovery” of the land that we now call the United States. But the politics of the Revolution disqualified the other contenders. Henry Hudson was British. Giovanni Caboto (anglicized as “John Cabot”) sailed for Britain. Juan Ponce de Leon was already in use as a hero in Spain. Giovanni da Verrazzano met an end unbefitting any proper national hero, having been eaten by Carib Indians in 1526.

Columbus had flaws as well. Until his death, he publicly insisted that he had in fact landed in East Asia as he originally intended. He was neither an especially talented mariner nor a success at founding a colony in the New World. Other than to allow him to begin bouncing around the Caribbean doing capricious and cruel things to its inhabitants, his famous voyage accomplished little

Fascinating information. Bot will need to convince DeCarlo to expand her article to include a defense of Columbus as the rightful discoverer of America.

[_Gadianton]

Interesting. Are there any writings from Smith or others confirming beyond any doubt that this scripture refers to Columbus?

If Isaiah 29 is talking about Charles Anthon and Joseph Smith, then the Nephi verse is talking about Columbus.

[_I have a question]

Shouldn’t Mormons have been rallying against Columbus Day right from the start, and lobbied to have the name changed to “Brother Of Jared Day”?

[_consiglieri]

As for the Book of Mormon mention of Columbus? I fail to see how it can be mutually exclusive with the historical Columbus. Even wicked men are some times prompted by God for his purposes. That is if it even refers to Columbus specifically and not one of the other explorers mentioned in the OP. Scripture doesn't specify. We've always assumed vs 12 is Columbus and vs 13 is the pilgrims, but there are many historically that fit the bill.

Some time ago, I learned Bible scholars were able to date the authorship of the Book of Daniel with some precision due to the prophecies it contains.

The prophecies are very specific up to a certain point, but then become fuzzy and generic.

Scholars came to the conclusion that the Daniel prophecies were written at the point they go from being specific to hazy, and then were back-dated to the time of Daniel and put into his mouth.

It is a relatively easy thing to be specific about prophecies that have already happened as of the time of the actual writing, but more difficult to be specific about prophecies after that point in time.

It was with some disappointment I recognized a similar phenomenon going on with Nephi's prophecies.

Nephi's prophecies are very specific up through Columbus and even the American Revolution.

After that, they become fuzzy and generic.

Any scholar with no dog in the fight would date the authorship of the Book of Mormon to shortly after the American Revolution on this basis alone.