Tuesday, February 5, 2013

More Comments Answered

More comments keep flooding in. Here are a few more and our responses:
Commennt #1: “Your Church has no official position on geography of the Book of Mormon because they know the lands in the Book of Mormon never existed” Century Man
Response: First of all, it is not required for salvation to know where the Book of Mormon took place any more than it is to know where the Bible took place. Second, as has been pointed out in these posts several times, critics often exaggerate the extent to which Biblical locations are known (see recent post “Finding Proof of the Book of Mormon”).
Due to the historic interest in the archaeology of the Near East, especially due to the Biblical links of the area, there are a large number of organizations dedicated to the archaeological investigation of the region. These include the American Schools of Oriental Research, which publishes the journal Near Eastern Archaeology Magazine, and the Council for British Research in the Levant, which publishes the journal Levant. The most common fields of study are Biblical archaeology, dealing with the region and history of the Bible; Assyriology dealing with Mesopotamia; Egyptology, dealing with the ancient history of what is today Egypt and parts of the Sudan, which, all of the above, has to do with the Bible; and the fourth is not tied to a region but instead deals with the origins of culture before the invention of writing; the number of archaeologists looking for Book of Mormon evidence is infinitely small by comparison
Third, critics also ignore the disadvantages under which New World archaeology labors compared to the Old World, especially how many are looking for Biblical matches as compared to the extreme few looking for Book of Mormon matches. Fourth, critics also ignore that there is substantial evidence for the Old World accounts in the Book of Mormon that were not known in Joseph Smith's day. Fifth, while many LDS scholars believe that a Mesoamerican setting best matches the Book of Mormon data, numerous other models have been advanced, with South America being the most likely of all locations suggested (See the three books in the series: Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica, Who Really Settled Mesoamerica, and Inaccuracies of Mesoamerican & Other Theorists). Lastly, and most importantly, in 1829, when Joseph Smith translated the plates, the lands of Peru and the South American Andes, with their ruins dating to Jaredite and Nephite times, and the ruins in Mesoamerica, dating to Nephite A.D. times, was unknown. When Joseph Smith first heard of the explorer who wrote of the Central American ruins, he was excited to see such verification of the Book of Mormon. In addition, at the time Joseph was translating, no one knew about the conditions of the 30º south latitude landing he proclaimed along the Chilean coast and how it matched exactly the description of Nephi’s writings of how he got to the Land of Promise and what he found there. The list goes on and on, but the point is, this information can be matched to an exact area and every descriptive point in the scriptural text can be verified by present or past circumstances surrounding the Andean area of South America as three years of posts on this blog have shown.
Comment #2: “It is unconscionable how anyone could espouse a model outside of Western New York or Colonial America with all the fulfilled land prophecies there. Please read the Spiritual Geography next time you visit the true Book of Mormon Geography site.”  BOMG
Response: Perhaps you should say that to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, Ezra Taft Benson, and Bruce R. McConkie. All of these general authorities (and four prophets) have stated unequivocally, that “Zion is North and South America,” and that “The Americas are the Land of Joseph, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, the land of the Nephites, the land of the Ephraimites who are gathering in for the latter days,” and “It is the land God gave to Jacob, and that land is North and South America,” and “right here on this choice land of the Americas.” You might also want to suggest these five brethren to Rodney Meldrum and his Spiritual Geography, and include Joseph Smith’s comment from his July 19, 1840 message that the Land of Zion consists of North and South America (see Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith).
Comment #3: Those who know little about science should not profess to. The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that only the ignorant can deny it. I agree that God created the earth, the solar system, and the entire universe. He made it. A baker makes a cake. But does that mean that he placed each and every particle of the cake exactly as they are found in the finished product? Of course not! The baker understands how to put the right ingredients together in the right proportions and under the right circumstances to get what he wants. Likewise, God knows what ingredients (elements) to mix together in what proportions, at what place and time and under what conditions (laws of physics and chemistry) in order to create the universe and the world in which we live. The evidence is as vast as the evidence cited by Alma to Korihor (Alma 30:44)” Brandon R.
Response: Might I suggest you read my book, "Scientific Fallacies & Other Myths," or, if I am not creditable to you, then read the numerous writings of very serious scientists who disagree with evolution, of which there are many. At the same time, I might add a thought about “Let us form man in our own image,” doesn’t seem to ring true with life being formed in a primordial soup 3.8 billion years before man was actually organized. Either man or God is lying to us! You choose.
Comment 4: I really enjoy your blog and find it all so interesting and rings true, thanks! Will be ordering your book soon” Tiffany.
Response: Thank you.
The beginning of the Mississippi River is in northern Minnesota, 2530 miles north of its (Right) mouth which empties in the south of Louisiana and into the Gulf of Mexico
Comment #5: I read where the Mississippi River, at 2300 miles long, is far too long to be the River Sidon. The article added, ‘Alma tells us the Sidon River is in the Land of Zarahemla, but the length of the entire Land of Promise from Bountiful in the north (Alma 27:22) to Manti in the south (Alma 16:7; 22:27) was a day (Alma 43:18-24).’ Therefore, the Mississippi River could not be the River Sidon. I am a little confused though about claiming the head of the river was actually its confluence or mouth” Granger.
Response: “While the idea of the Mississippi River not being the River Sidon is correct, the scriptures quoted have nothing to do with the length of the Land of Promise from Bountiful to Manti. In the 11 verses quoted, found in 4 chapters and covering 696 words, there is not one single mention of anything being “a day,” nor is any distance given, time frame of travel, or anything else involved—they only show directions, and even those are not always clear. As for the meaning of the “head of the river” used in the Book of Mormon, like any dictionary today, Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, and the Book of Mormon itself, the head of a river is its source, not its confluence or mouth as Heartland theorists like to claim. Take just one example in 1 Nephi 8:13-14 in the description of Lehi’s dream: “And as I cast my eyes round about that perhaps I might discover my family also I beheld a river of water and it ran along and it was near the tree of which I was partaking the fruit. And I looked to behold from whence it came and I saw the head thereof a little way off and at the head thereof I beheld your mother Sariah and Sam and Nephi and they stood as if they knew not whither they should go” (1 Nephi 8:13-14, emphasis mine). In this passage, the "head" of a river in the Book of Mormon meant its source, not its mouth. Also, in case you are interested the Urubamba River in Peru is 450 miles long, flows from the south to the north, and now through the Amazon to the sea, though in Alma’s time, it flowed directly into the East Sea, and meets the criteria described in the scriptural record.

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