Mr Peterson provides archeological proof of the B ofM...?

[_Fence Sitter]

There are some evidences, such as NHM, Bountiful, Chiasmus, and some linguistic phrases such as river of water. As Ray said, Consig has a long list of "bullseyes". While I haven't seen one that counts as an actual bullseye, any intellectually honest person has to count these in the arena of evidences. I'm also still waiting for Consig to claim that the use of the word "the" in the Book of Mormon is a bullseye! ;)

As of yet, I know of no evidences that have been brought forth from mesoamerica.

I should also point out that the use of the word "proof" is pretty ballsy. There is no proof one way or the other. We have evidences, each with their own weight.

Except the book purports to be an actual history, and while it is not supposed to be perfect, it is supposed to be fairly close. Therefore evidence against it,in my opinion, weighs against it much more heavily than Consigs "Bullseyes" or other 'hits' weigh in its favor. So either you have to start introducing ideas like "loose translation" and move away from "the most perfect book there is" or give a lot more weight to contrary evidence than you do evidence for it.

[_Scottie]

Except the book purports to be an actual history, and while it is not supposed to be perfect, it is supposed to be fairly close. Therefore evidence against it,in my opinion, weighs against it much more heavily than Consigs "Bullseyes" or other 'hits' weigh in its favor. So either you have to start introducing ideas like "loose translation" and move away from "the most perfect book there is" or give a lot more weight to contrary evidence than you do evidence for it.

Very true. Which is why I am no longer a Mormon. The weight of the evidences against the Book of Mormon, in my opinion, FAR outweigh the evidences for it. Many apologists disagree.

I've heard too many critics decry that there is ZERO evidence for the Book of Mormon being true, which is just a bald faced lie.

[_Buffalo]

Very true. Which is why I am no longer a Mormon. The weight of the evidences against the Book of Mormon, in my opinion, FAR outweigh the evidences for it. Many apologists disagree.

I've heard too many critics decry that there is ZERO evidence for the Book of Mormon being true, which is just a bald faced lie.

There is no evidence I'm aware of that unambiguously supports the Book of Mormon. Do you know of any?

All of the "evidence" I've seen is on the level of the "Bloop" analogy that I think Darth J came up with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

The Bloop occurred in about the same general location as the location in Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu." But does that really constitute evidence that Cthulhu is real?

[_Scottie]

There is no evidence I'm aware of that unambiguously supports the Book of Mormon. Do you know of any?

All of the "evidence" I've seen is on the level of the "Bloop" analogy that I think Darth J came up with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

The Bloop occurred in about the same general location as the location in Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu." But does that really constitute evidence that Cthulhu is real?

What do you mean by unambiguous support?

NHM is pretty detailed. Chiasmus is detailed. Some of the verses like river of water is pretty detailed.

[_Buffalo]

There is no evidence I'm aware of that unambiguously supports the Book of Mormon. Do you know of any?

All of the "evidence" I've seen is on the level of the "Bloop" analogy that I think Darth J came up with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop

The Bloop occurred in about the same general location as the location in Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu." But does that really constitute evidence that Cthulhu is real?

What do you mean by unambiguous support?

NHM is pretty detailed. Chiasmus is detailed. Some of the verses like river of water is pretty detailed.

NHM is pretty ambiguous. It isn't necessarily Nahom. And, it very much falls on the same level of evidence as the "bloop." How could Lovecraft have known?

Chaismus is found in the D&C too, and in Joseph Smith's personal writings. And in a lot of other modern writing.

[_Equality]

Chiasmus is found in the D&C too,

As well as in Dr. Seuss.

[_consiglieri]

I've heard too many critics decry that there is ZERO evidence for the Book of Mormon being true, which is just a bald faced lie.

I agree, though I would hasten to add there is a good deal of evidence on the other side of the scale. (I know you know this, Scottie. I just want to make sure you know I know it.)

Sometimes when I am looking at purported "bull's-eyes" (which I would rather refer to in a serious vein as "points of contact") between the LDS scriptures and the ancient world, I step back and try the following analyis:

If the Book of Mormon were simply a secular ancient document, with no gold plates and angels attached, would I think the points of contact amounted to anything?

And further, based on my amateur knowledge of Biblical studies, would somebody else approaching the subject without an axe to grind feel the same way?

These are still subjective assessments, but at least it gives us a good place to start.

I think that under such a scenario, a publication-subsequent finding of a place called NHM in the correct place and at the correct time as mentioned in the Book of Mormon would be considered strong evidence for its ancientness (note I didn't say authenticity).

The location of a place matching the description of the Book of Mormon Bountiful on the coast, almost due east from the place called Nahom, is even more striking to my mind.

Of course, this is not unambiguous, as Buffalo points out. But I think there are few evidences in the world that would be considered to unambiguously support a given proposition. There are always other ways to interpret things, it seems.

I also think chiasmus cannot be easily dismissed as an evidence. If the Book of Mormon were a secular document claiming to be ancient, it seems likely a reasonable scholar would consider the extensive presence of elaborate chiasmi in its pages to be supporting evidence. (If memory serves, some non-LDS Bible scholars have said as much.)

But once again, it cannot be said to be unambiguous.

I think research done by, among others, Dan Peterson, John Tvedtnes, David Bokovoy, John Welch and Hugh Nibley make it difficult to simply dismiss all corroborative evidence with a wave of the hand.

Is everything all the above scholars have published of equal value? Certainly not. And they would probably be the first to say so. But to say all of it is of no value is probably equally extreme.

Grant Hardy's recent book, "Understanding the Book of Mormon," raises the bar of internal Book of Mormon complexity. I have been reading the Book of Mormon for over thirty years, and pretty closely at that, and I was amazed at the things Grant Hardy pulled from the text.

I remain convinced the Book of Mormon will wear all its students out before they wear it out. That is not what I would expect from a naturally produced book from early 19th century America.

And what do we make of Margaret Barker, who in an e-mail correspondence with MsJack (?) wrote the following on 3/1/2010

What strikes me most is this: I have been researching and reconstructing the world of the temple now for over 30 years, putting together the fragments of an ancient picture that was severely damaged by upheavals in history and poltiics, not to mention theology. I am astonished that time and time again, things that I thought I had "discovered" and not found in the work of any other contemporary acholar, are also there in the LDS traditions.

Is there evidence for ancient authorship of the Book of Mormon? I think so.

Is there evidence for modern authorship of the Book of Mormon? I think so.

What do we do, then, with this evidence?

One side brushes away all modern authorship evidence and claims exclusive ancient authorship.

The other side brushes away all ancient authorship evidence and claims exclusive modern authorship.

But I think the evidence points to something else, that being a mixture of both an ancient and modern production milieu for the Book of Mormon.

What does that mean exactly insofar as the translation process itself is concerned?

I haven't a clue.

But I think my position is reasonable based upon the available evidence.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_jon]

Consign,

Thanks for your well considered post.
Unfortunately I find your position on the Book of Mormon (that it seems to be a mix of modern and ancient authorship) untenable.
The Church that 'sells' the Book of Mormon does so on the basis that it is solely a translated work of ancient origin. If it is not so, the Church states that it's totality must be a fraud. It's either all true, or it's all false.

Fence sitting not allowed.

If you have found a portion to be of modern origin, then it's a fraud.

[_thews]

I've heard too many critics decry that there is ZERO evidence for the Book of Mormon being true, which is just a bald faced lie.

Strongly disagree. Arguments from silence based on supposed puzzle pieces which need to differentiate distortion from fact is not "evidence". If the KEP is evidence, then it should be what Joseph Smith claimed it was. It's not, which is why they won't release it for critical examination, so this tangible evidence proves conclusively that Joseph Smith was not able to translate Egyptian as he claimed.

As Mormons wait for some new evidence based on some hypothetical archeological find in Mesoamerica, what's not acknowledged is that if the Book of Mormon's historicity were true, the vast people and artifacts would have been found. They found Blackbeard's ship, how hard then, would it be to find evidence of the great war that killed Zelph? We know exactly where Zelph was found, so why aren't there bones strewn about along with the fine steel swords?

What's verifiability not true far outweighs the distortion required to believe part of it is true. I don't get your motive here Scottie, as it seems skewed. Do you have an agenda that makes making arguments for something you know is not true beneficial to you? If you wanted to find "evidence" for the existence of Bigfoot you could make a better argument, but exactly what evidence are you claiming is so conclusive that it's a "bald faced lie" to ignore it regarding the historicity in the Book of Mormon?

[_consiglieri]

Consig probably has quite a few more "hits" up his sleeve (wink to Consig). I have read a couple of his non-message board articles, though, and they are considerably better (much more research). In any case, an old FAIR (it would have been FAIR at the time) thread might be of interest:

The Full Text Of The William Albright Letter: Did Albright Find Egyptian Names in Book of Mormon?.

Thanks for the link, Ray. (It also allowed me to backdoor my way into MDD Board for a trip down memory lane!)

I just got done reading the thread and had forgotten how interesting the subject of Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon is. And I had TOTALLY forgotten about MRMN (MeRiaMoN) being an attested Egyptian name linked on an ancient stela with Piankhi (a.k.a. Paanchi).

All the Best!

Hope you and yours are doing well.

--Consiglieri