FAIR releases online videos

[_CaliforniaKid]

Not to sound redundant but...

Let's try to keep our critics straight, shall we? Godmakers was the brainchild of Ed Decker. Utah Lighthouse Ministries, founded by the Tanners, was sharply critical of Decker and his Godmakers book and films.

http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexa.htm#Godmakers

The Bible vs. Book of Mormon video was put out by Living Hope Ministries.

I understand the Tanners are catch-all apostates, but they really can't be blamed for everything that's wrong with the universe. Actually, some of their work was quite useful, especially back when Jerald was in his prime.

[_why me]

Not to sound redundant but...

Let's try to keep our critics straight, shall we? Godmakers was the brainchild of Ed Decker. Utah Lighthouse Ministries, founded by the Tanners, was sharply critical of Decker and his Godmakers book and films.

http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexa.htm#Godmakers

The Bible vs. Book of Mormon video was put out by Living Hope Ministries.

I understand the Tanners are catch-all apostates, but they really can't be blamed for everything that's wrong with the universe. Actually, some of their work was quite useful, especially back when Jerald was in his prime.

True enough. The videos were made in response to one of these videos if not both of them to my understanding.

[_why me]

Not to sound redundant but...

Let's try to keep our critics straight, shall we? Godmakers was the brainchild of Ed Decker. Utah Lighthouse Ministries, founded by the Tanners, was sharply critical of Decker and his Godmakers book and films.

http://www.utlm.org/topicalindexa.htm#Godmakers

The Bible vs. Book of Mormon video was put out by Living Hope Ministries.

I understand the Tanners are catch-all apostates, but they really can't be blamed for everything that's wrong with the universe. Actually, some of their work was quite useful, especially back when Jerald was in his prime.

And here in this video is mentioned a reference to one of those videos but not by name but by innuendo. FAIR perhaps did not want to give the anti video any undo publicity.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2365603972

[Anonymous]

Go FAIR go! I say we need to give those men and women at FAIR a big hand for a job well done!!!

The whole thing is a big hand job.

Yeah the point isn't to provide thoughtful scholarly opinion, but score "belief points" off one's enemies. Maybe they did it slightly less intellectually crudely than the other side (or not), but who cares? Why am I under obligation to praise something I find inherently wrong-headed just because its "well done?" Further, if one rejects this kind of thing entirely, then there really is no basis for finding one version "better" than another.

I can see that I am dealing with non-professionals on this forum and so, allow me to educate you guys and gals of the internet. It is not about documenting every fact or detail. It is about getting the message across to the general public.

The bad internet may be "not about documenting every fact or detail" for a general public assumed to be easily entertained morons, but for those of us who labor professionally in the production and circulation of knowledge, the advent of digital information technology offers the opportunity for a kind of "document every fact and detail" level of education heretofore impossible. One can proceed from the assumption that the "general public" are incapable of anything but the susperstitious credulity of medieval peasants or the easily-swayed opinions of ignorant rubes and produce one's messages accordingly, or one can imagine a new kind of public predicated on the potential of digital technology and help bring this new generation into being. Which set of interests do you think these videos promote?

[_Bond...James Bond]

Testimonies of the scholars:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 3549167256

Can anyone read the books off of DCP's left shoulder. Nibley and the Book of Mormon. Subliminal?

Kerry Shirts needs to fix his tie. (Actually he needs a new tie).

[_Brackite]

Go FAIR go! I say we need to give those men and women at FAIR a big hand for a job well done!!!

Hello,
Most of FAIR 'Scholarship' Sucks! If you want to want to Watch Real Scholarship, With Real Scholars Speaking, Please Click Here.

[_Zakuska]

Re. Kerry's tie... I saw that too.

Truth dancer,

These are just clips and sound bites from a complete video rebuttle to the other video.

Heres the sources for the horses of the Yucatan: (Note the proximity to the proposed LGT lands)

Publications from the late 1950s reported results from excavations by scientists working on the Yucatan Peninsula. Excavations at the site of Mayapan, which dates to a few centuries before the Spaniards arrived, yielded horse bones in four spots. (Two of the lots were from the surface, however, and might represent Spanish horses.) From another site, the Cenote (water hole) Ch'en Mul, came other traces, this time from a firm archaeological context. In the bottom stratum in a sequence of levels of unconsolidated earth almost two meters in thickness, two horse teeth were found. They were partially mineralized, indicating that they were definitely ancient and could not have come from any Spanish animal. The interesting thing is that Maya pottery was also found in the stratified soil where the teeth were located.2

Subsequent digging has expanded the evidence for an association of humans with horses. But the full story actually goes back to 1895, when American paleontologist Henry C. Mercer went to Yucatan hoping to find remains of Ice Age man. He visited 29 caves in the hill area—the Puuc—of the peninsula and tried stratigraphic excavation in 10 of them. But the results were confused, and he came away disillusioned. He did find horse bones in three caves (Actun Sayab, Actun Lara, and Chektalen). In terms of their visible characteristics, those bones should have been classified as from the Pleistocene American horse species, then called Equus occidentalis L. However, Mercer decided that since the remains were near the surface, they must actually be from the modern horse, Equus equus, that the Spaniards had brought with them to the New World, and so he reported them as such.3 In 1947 Robert T. Hatt repeated Mercer's activities. He found within Actun Lara and one other cave more remains of the American horse (in his day it was called Equus conversidens), along with bones of other extinct animals. Hatt recommended that any future work concentrate on Loltun Cave, where abundant animal and cultural remains could be seen.4

It took until 1977 before that recommendation bore fruit. Two Mexican archaeologists carried out a project that included a complete survey of the complex system of subterranean cavities (made by underground water that had dissolved the subsurface limestone). They also did stratigraphic excavation in areas in the Loltun complex not previously visited. The pits they excavated revealed a sequence of 16 layers, which they numbered from the surface downward. Bones of extinct animals (including mammoth) appear in the lowest layers.

Pottery and other cultural materials were found in levels VII and above. But in some of those artifact-bearing strata there were horse bones, even in level II. A radiocarbon date for the beginning of VII turned out to be around 1800 BC. The pottery fragments above that would place some portions in the range of at least 900–400 BC and possibly later. The report on this work concludes with the observation that "something went on here that is still difficult to explain." Some archaeologists have suggested that the horse bones were stirred upward from lower to higher levels by the action of tunneling rodents, but they admit that this explanation is not easy to accept. The statement has also been made that paleontologists will not be pleased at the idea that horses survived to such a late date as to be involved with civilized or near-civilized people whose remains are seen in the ceramic-using levels.5 Surprisingly, the Mexican researchers show no awareness of the horse teeth discovered in 1957 by Carnegie Institution scientists Pollock and Ray. (Some uncomfortable scientific facts seem to need rediscovering time and time again.)

Meanwhile, Dr. Steven E. Jones of the BYU physics department has for several years been tracking down horse bones in North America considered to predate the European conquest. Professor Jones's purpose for this search is to submit the bones to tests by the radiocarbon method (some of that work has taken advantage of assistance from FARMS). So far, one or more finds appear to be possibly of pre-Spanish Conquest date, although definitive results will take more work. Further work is being done by Yuri Kuchinsky, a researcher in Canada who has been pursuing a variety of other evidence, based mainly on Native American lore, about possible pre-Conquest horses in North America.

Hebrew Writing in Bolivia?
In a private communication to John Sorenson, an archaeologist in the Midwest reports that a group of people in Bolivia who are interested in antiquities of the area have asked U.S. archaeologists for help in evaluating the authenticity of an artifact found in that South American country. The large ceramic basin is modeled to show stylized fauna on its sides. That much can be seen on an indistinct photograph submitted by e-mail, but there are also supposed to be "characters" on it, not perceptible in the photograph, that the people concerned feel might be in a Semitic script. A relevant expert (not LDS) will be traveling to Bolivia to examine the piece firsthand. Even if characters are apparent, it will still probably be impossible to learn the context from which the loose artifact was obtained and thus what it might signify.

Horse bones appear on the upper 5 levels and are mixed with pottery shards. Carbon dates in these levels are from 1800BC to 400BC. (See my last post or the link below) It seems these findings are in the works of being published and arnt out yet.

The sources from the article are:

1. John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992), 98–100.
2. See Harry E. D. Pollock and Clayton E. Ray, "Notes on Vertebrate Animal Remains from Mayapan," Current Reports 41 (August 1957): 638; this publication is from the Department of Archaeology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. See also Clayton E. Ray, "Pre-Columbian Horses from Yucatan," Journal of Mammalogy 38 (1957): 278.
3. Henry C. Mercer, The Hill-Caves of Yucatan: A Search for Evidence of Man's Antiquity in the Caverns of Central America (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1896), 172.
4. Robert T. Hatt, "Faunal and Archaeological Researches in Yucatan Caves," Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bulletin 33, 1953. See Peter J. Schmidt, "La entrada del hombre a la peninsula de Yucatan," in Origines del Hombre Americano, comp. Alba Gonzalez Jacome (Mexico: Secretaria de Educacion Publica, 1988), 250.
5. Schmidt, "La entrada," 254.

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?id=246&table=jbms

http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?id=246&table=jbms

[_beastie]

Zak,

You may be interested in this thread where this issue was discussed.

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... &start=147

[_truth dancer]

Hey Zak... nice to see you! :-)

Here is the thing...

I do not believe there is even one reputable expert, or even one reliable source that claims there were hores in Book of Mormon lands (LGT), during Book of Mormon times. Not one. If there is one please inform us about it. 8)

For Dan to claim that these known recent bones are possible evidence of bones during Book of Mormon times, or to suggest this is so is misleading to say the least. He words his statement carefully, yes, still, he is giving the impression of what is not true. He is using a source that I am pretty sure he knows has been clearly discounted.

I find this tactic disconcerting.

~dancer~

[_Infymus]

Horse bones appear on the upper 5 levels and are mixed with pottery shards. Carbon dates in these levels are from 1800BC to 400BC. (See my last post or the link below) It seems these findings are in the works of being published and arnt out yet.

Lets see, 112 years ago, a guy found something he thought was horse bones. Then, in 1955 somebody ELSE dated PART of some stuff in a similar area to 1800 years ago.

WHAM! Horses existed during Book of Mormon times!

Of course FAIR/FARMS avoids everything that has been documented in the last 25-50 years. FARMS and FAIR data mines to find only what supports their preconceived ideas.

Is this the best that FARMS can do? The boys at FARMS are like lawyers - they are not honest seekers of truth, they're advocating a position independently of the validity of the position.

Mormons just suck this stuff up and then toss it around like it is the end-all.

The fact is, modern day archaeologists have found absolutely NO proof of horses existing during the so-called time of the "Nephites and Lamanites". Only FAIR and FARMS have taken bits and pieces that support their own conclusions and called it fact. Anyone who decides to look up the information for themselves will find that FAIR/FARMS is nothing more than an answer-mill designed to keep Mormons in the Cult and complacent.