Journey of Faith DVDs

[_beastie]

John E. Clark has shown the defect of this type of thinking.

Oh really? How has he done so? Where does Clark suggest that future discoveries in Mesoamerica will demonstrate the existence of a significant Judeo-Christian polity?

I also think, just for the record that Coe's observation in his Breaking the Maya Code (p. 271) is worth repeating. "You might reasonably tink that the decipherment of the Maya script would have been greeted with open arms by the archaeologists. Not a bit of it! The reaction of the digging fraternity (and sorority) to the most exciting development in New World archaeology this century has been.... rejection."

In light of thatcomment, what makes you even pretend to know that any new discovery will be accepted, learned about, and understood? Coe has shown in many, many places the sheer bias, the utter inept stupidity of the very scientists who are supposed to be teaching us about the Maya. And your claiming we know a whole lot about them. Now who am I going tobelieve here? You even claim his credentials are "impeccible." O.K. I can accept that. Why do you presume to lecture me about Mesoamerica, when it is obvious from my reading of Coe that the very experts you think teach us all about Mesoamerica are the most bias ones on earth?

You're going to milk that for all it's worth, or more than it's worth. Once again, these serious mistakes were made prior to the decoding of the Maya glyph. The decoding of the Maya glyph has enabled scholars to understand quite a bit about the abstract beliefs, as well as historical details, of the ancient Maya, and it is unlikely that any future discovery will overturn the field the way decoding the glyphs did.

[_beastie]

I think it is also worth noting that Linda Schele and David Freidel said "And know that this time of discovery is not over yet, for the decipherment of the Maya Writing System, the study of their religion and politics, the excavations and analyses of the remains of their lives are not yet finished. In truth, they are barely begun." (my emphasis - A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya, William Morrow, 1990: 14)

I am willing to sit it out, keep reading, and not worrying about whether one thinks Mesoamerica refutes the Book of Mormon or not. There is not enough fiality for either side to come to firm hard or final coclusions.

Are you just ignoring all that has taken place since 1990?? Mesoamerican scholars are able to present their conclusions with far more certainty now, since, drumroll, the breaking of the Maya Code. You keep referring to it and yet do not seem to fully register what that actually meant.

The fact that there will be future discoveries does not justify stating “there is not enough finality for either side to come to firm hard or final conclusions”. Even Mormon Mesoamerican scholars accept certain firm and final conclusions, such as the religious worldview that was totally enmeshed within the politics and culture of ancient Mesoamerica. That’s why they tell believers to stop looking for the Book of Mormon in ancient Mesoamerica, and instead look for ancient Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon.

This is the same issue I tried to demonstrate with the tapir theory. Apologists came up with the tapir theory due to the fact that they know there is no serious evidence for the horse in ancient Mesoamerica. Mormon Mesoamerican scholars aren’t telling believers to expect for future evidence of a Judeo-Christian polity, they’re explaining why we shouldn’t expect future evidence of Judeo-Christian polity. They understand what you, and other believers so impressed by the dvd, do not.

[_Ray A]

Here's another theory that should provoke some thought:

'First Americans were Australian'

Until now, native Americans were believed to have descended from Asian ancestors who arrived over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and then migrated across the whole of north and south America. The land bridge was formed 11,000 years ago during the ice age, when sea level dropped.

The skull dimensions and facial features match most closely the native people of Australia and Melanesia. These people date back to about 60,000 years, and were themselves descended from the first humans, who left Africa about 100,000 years ago.

But how could the early Australians have travelled more than 13,500 kilometres (8,450 miles) at that time? The answer comes from more cave paintings, this time from the Kimberley, a region at the northern tip of Western Australia.

Here, Grahame Walsh, an expert on Australian rock art, found the oldest painting of a boat anywhere in the world. The style of the art means it is at least 17,000 years old, but it could be up to 50,000 years old.

This theory, I put it to you, holds more substance than a Nephite colonisation of America.

[_Jersey Girl]

Oh, for heaven’s sake. If you’ve been compiling a list of grievances based on all the things that critics have said about your work that you found unjustified, and want to return tit for tat, would you kindly do it on another thread, perhaps designed just for that purpose?

It's his thread.

[_beastie]

It's his thread.

His thread is supposedly about the dvd.

But sure, he's free to divert and distract by trying to enact revenge for past injustices he's suffered on his own thread. It's pretty silly, particularly when he's speaking to someone who hasn't simply dismissed the work of Mormon scholars, but addressed the substance of those claims, but he can do what he wants.

[_Ray A]

It appears that the SA articles that were online are no longer free, but in the late '90s they published several articles about "The First Americans".

I found a more recent one Here, but only an abstract.

Rolando González-José of the University of Barcelona and his colleagues examined 33 modern Amerindian skulls recovered from the tip of the Baja peninsula in Mexico. Studying numerous cranial traits, the team took detailed measurements in order to compare the remains with those from other sites. They found that the skulls showed a stronger resemblance to so-called Paleoamericans, who arrived from south Asia and the Pacific Rim, than they do to Paleoindian remains that have been linked to northeast Asia and Mongolia. Tom D. Dillehay of University of Kentucky notes in an accompanying commentary that the "new data add to accumulating evidence of morphological differences between early humans from different areas of the Americas." (Emphasis mine)

[Guest]

beastie

you are relying in the errors made in the field prior to the ability to read the Maya glyphs

What errors have I relied on in the 1990's? Is everything written in that decade now completely wrong? In that case, how on earth can you think anything you have is reliable at all? If we give it another 10 years, once again, we won't know anything correct! So am I to presume that everything at 10 year increments in Mesoamerican knowledge is error and out of date?

[_JustMe]

beastie

Oh really? How has he done so? Where does Clark suggest that future discoveries in Mesoamerica will demonstrate the existence of a significant Judeo-Christian polity?

Clark has said nothing (yet) about aJudeo-Christian polity in Mesoamerica. But he certainly has demonstrated many cultural paralels and ideas of Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon. It's in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, I believe in 2005, or 2006. I do't have the exact issue right at my fingertips at the moment. Forget the Judeo-Christian polity, what about all the other items and ideas he has discovered. Have you shown him to be totally wrong?

[_beastie]

Beastie said

you are relying in the errors made in the field prior to the ability to read the Maya glyphs

Kerry replied:

What errors have I relied on in the 1990's? Is everything written in that decade now completely wrong? In that case, how on earth can you think anything you have is reliable at all? If we give it another 10 years, once again, we won't know anything correct! So am I to presume that everything at 10 year increments in Mesoamerican knowledge is error and out of date?

You are confused. I will try again. You have read Breaking the Maya Code, correct? Your confusion is somewhat odd given the fact that you’ve read the book, or I’m assuming you have since you have it on your shelf.

You keep referring to Thompson’s very serious error in thinking the Maya were peaceful and the cities vacant centers of ritual alone. The entire reason Thompson was able to make such a serious error was due to the fact that he postulated this prior to the breaking of the Maya code. Once the Maya code was broken, it became far more unlikely that such a grave and extensive error would be made again, in terms of the abstract beliefs of the people. Why? As you said, the written word is invaluable in terms of figuring out the abstract beliefs of a people (although dirt archaeology is perhaps more useful than the written word in figuring out the power structures, due to the polluting effect of propaganda). Schele and Friedel’s book is incredibly important, still and yet. But it was written 18 years ago, and in those 18 years even more discoveries and decoding of glyphs have taken place. These discoveries have affirmed much – but not all – of what Schele and Friedel speculated (they may have been incorrect about the war involving Tikal). But they certainly have affirmed what Schele and Friedel noted about the pan-Mesoamerican religious world-view.

You are suggesting that it is not unlikely that a Judeo-Christian culture, the approximate size of the later Aztec Empire, will one day be uncovered. While nothing is impossible, I rate this as likely as discovering evidence that aliens really did build the Egyptian pyramids one day. There is nothing that currently points to a Judeo-Christian culture. There is also nothing that points to a polity as powerful as the later Aztecs. For current scholars to be making such an egregious error in their interpretations of what they have currently uncovered would even surpass Thompson’s mistake. But Thompsons’ mistake happened because the glyphs hadn’t yet been cracked. So a mistake of such magnitude again is remote.

[_beastie]

Clark has said nothing (yet) about aJudeo-Christian polity in Mesoamerica. But he certainly has demonstrated many cultural paralels and ideas of Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon. It's in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, I believe in 2005, or 2006. I do't have the exact issue right at my fingertips at the moment. Forget the Judeo-Christian polity, what about all the other items and ideas he has discovered. Have you shown him to be totally wrong?

Gee, you're kidding! I will have to read that talk!!! (insert eye roll here)


Seriously, Kerry, have you followed any of these conversations on FAIR at all??? I corresponded with Clark about the talk, and he conceded that I made fair criticisms. I talked about this on Z and FAIR.

Read here (this thread is also amusing because it contains a horrifically misleading statement by Brant Gardner, quoting Coe to mean the exact opposite of what Coe actually said).

Also check out this Fair thread to read my correspondence with Clark.

I don't have a peep stone, but I can make one sure prophesy. John Clark will never, never make an argument for evidence pointing to a Judeo-Christian culture in Mesoamerica. Instead, he will make the same argument Brant has - that we should not expect to find evidence of a Judeo-Christian culture in ancient Mesoamerica, and, instead, try to find Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon.