The title of the post was "TIL A devout Mormon set out in 1955 on an archaeological expedition to prove the Book of Mormon's claims. After 15 years instead he found nearly every claim in the BOM was wrong and the papyrus J. Smith claimed written by Abraham was actually just a page ripped out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead"
A few of the comments wondered how we react to this sort of stuff. The post was cross-posted to the latterdaysaint subreddit with the same question for us, and it received many positive responses before it was taken down. (I presume because the post it was pointing at was taken down.)
Here is my response to the claims made in the title and the article.
The Book of Mormon
The article is a review of the book, "Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon" by Stan Larson. Contrary to the TIL title, Ferguson found a few claims wrong, not "nearly every claim." Let's see the claims addressed in the article.- "It turned out that the supposedly 'white god' Quetzalcoatl, thought to represent Jesus Christ, was only described as white in accounts dating after the coming of the Spaniards."
The Book of Mormon does claim that Jesus Christ visited the Americas. However, it does not claim that Jesus is Quetzalcoatl.
- "Joseph Smith's 1842 identification of the ancient ruins of Palenque, Mexico as a Nephite city — which Ferguson had once cited as support for locating the Nephites in Mesoamerica — was now known to date not earlier than A.D. 600, after BOM times."
The Book of Mormon makes no claims about Palenque being a Nephite city. Joseph Smith may have made the claim. When you read the article, you can see why-- the author of the article quotes 2 Nephi 13-16 where Nephi and his people build a temple. Other Mayan temples date to the preclassic period, which is when the Book of Mormon takes place, it doesn't have to be Palenque.
- "Likewise, Joseph Smith's identification of impressive ruins and an engraved stone at Quirigua, Guatemala with such a stone mentioned in Omni 1:20, was now known to be impossible, since the ruins date after the BOM period."
The source for this claim is another article published in Times and Seasons, a few months later, 1 October 1842. Joseph Smith is again said to be the editor. The author of the article talks about a large stone engraved with writing that had been found. Then they say, "We are not agoing to declare positively that the ruins of Quirigua are those of Zarahemla, but when the land and the stones, and the books tell the story so plain, we are of opinion, that it would require more proof than the Jews could bring to prove the disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb, to prove that the ruins of the city in question, are not one of those referred to in the Book of Mormon."
The Book of Mormon does not contain a claim about Quirigua. This article says it isn't making the claim. Central America has been found to be covered in ruins, the stone mentioned in Omni doesn't have to be in Quirigua.
- "The Book of Mormon fails four archaeological tests:
- "Plant-Life Test — It describes plow agriculture of wheat and barley, but there is no evidence from archaeology or ethnography of this level of civilization in the pre-Colombian New World"
- "Animal-Test — The Nephites and Jaredites raised many domesticated Old World animals, including horses, cattle, and sheep and goats, according to the BOM. However, there is no evidence from archaeology to support this picture. These animals were not found in the New World in BOM times, but were brought here by Europeans."
- "Metallurgy Test — The BOM attributes advanced metallurgical skills to the Nephites and Jaredites, whereas the archaeological record shows that 'no pre-Columbian iron metallurgy developed anywhere in the New World;' only gold and silver working skills developed in BOM times, and this was in Peru, hundreds of miles distant from where LDS archaeologists locate the Nephites and Jaredites."
- "Script Test — Scholars today see no linguistic relationship between any native American language or script and 'ancient Egyptian, Sumerian/Akkadian, or Hebrew languages or writing systems.'"
Now we get into things that are actual claims. The Book of Mormon makes four references to Barley, one for wheat: Mosiah 9:9 says the pepole of Zeniff planted wheat and barley seeds, Mosiah 7:22 says half the barley of Limhi's people are paid as a tribute to the Lamanites, and Alma 11:7&15 says a measure of barley was worth a senum of silver or a senine of gold.
Ferguson died in 1983. That same year, pre-Colombian barley was discovered in Phoenix, Arizona. Wheat has not been found, but the nutritionally similar psudo-grain Amaranth was grown and used in Mexico at the time the Spanish arrived.
The Book of Mormon also mentions these animals. When the Jaredite King Emer and his people prospered, Ether 9:18-19 says they had cattle, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, and horses. When Lehi and his family arrived in the Americas, Nephi says in 1 Nephi 18:25 that they found animals, including the cow and ox, horse, goat and wild goat. Enos writes in Enos 1:21 that the Nephites raised cattle of every kind, goats, wild goats, and many horses. The way Alma taught the people in Alma 5 implies that there were shepherds, and the people knew what sheep were. King Lamoni had horses which Ammon fed in Alma 18:9-12, and took on his journey to Middoni in Alma 20:6. Lachoneus has the people gather together in the land of Zarahemla and Bountiful to defend themselves against the Gadianton Robbers, and 3 Nephi 3:22 says they took their horses and their cattle. 3 Nephi 4:4 again says they reserved for themselves horses and cattle. After defeating the Gadianton Robbers in in 3 Nephi 6:1, the Nephites return to their lands with their horses and cattle.
In summarry, horses and cattle are throughout the book; sheep are there in Jaredite times, and possibly in Nephite times; and goats are mentioned in Jaredite times, and the beginning of Nephite times. There were other references to sheep that I did not list-- they are often used just as an expression, like "they shall again be brought to the ... knowledge of their Redeemer, and their great and true shepherd, and be numbered among his sheep" or "like a lion among the flocks of sheep" -- and no one thinks the Book of Mormon claims they had lions.
Horses are native to the Americas, and existed here at least until the ice age when they are believed to have died out, and no horse remains have been discovered that date to Book of Mormon times. Here is where I like to share my favorite Book of Mormon anachronism theory-- with stuff like this, there are three explanations Latter-day Saints have to explain the descrepency:
1) There really were horses, we just haven't found their remains yet. After all, it is well-known that the Huns used horses, but no archaeological evidence has been found to support it.
2) It is possible that there were no horses here, and that when the Nephites arrived they named some other animal a "horse" instead of creating a new name for it. This is similar to what we have done in history, we named a bison a buffalo, and we called the pronghorn an antelope, despite not being related to their old-world namesakes.
3) It is possible that not only were there no horses here, that the Nephites called them something different too, and instead the word "horse" appears from the translation. We see that in the King James Bible, too: they translated רְאֵם "reem" as "unicorn" while modern translations use "wild ox" instead. We don't know what word was on the plates that translates into "horse" so this possibility cannot be discounted.
Back to point 1, since this is an article about Thomas Ferguson and Archaeology, one of the Latter-day Saint archaeologists that went with him to Central America was John L. Sorensen. Sorensen saw the same evidence as Ferguson, but came away believing he found tons of evidence for the Book of Mormon. So why the difference? In an addendum to a review of Larson's book, Sorensen praises him as an enthusiast and scholar, but never saw him as a scholar or analyst. Sorensen reminds us that Ferguson was trained in law, not archaeology. He tells a story that when they "did the first archaeological reconnaissance of central Chiapas, ... his concern was to ask if local people had found any figurines of 'horses,' rather than to document the scores of sites we discovered and put on record for the first time."
Anyway, back to the other animals. Cattle: bones of domesticated cattle have been found with human remains and those of an extinct horse. Like horses, it could instead be a translation thing. Sorensen observes that the Miami Indians, unfamiliar with the buffalo called them "wild cows."
Sheep -- Bighorn sheep are a species of sheep that have been present in the Americas since Jaredite times.
Goats -- Mountain goats are native to the Americas. However even with an extended range, it is not likely these were in Mesoamerica. There is a goat that had a more southern range, but went extinct in the ice age along with many other animals. There are deer in Mesoamerica that has a horn that makes them look like goats.
Yes, Iron is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Ether 10:23 says the people under Jaredite King Lib were extremely industrious, and made iron. Nephi says in 2 Nephi 5:15 that he taught his people to work with iron. Jarom notes in Jarom 1:8 that the Nephites were rich in iron. King Noah taxed his people taking a fifth part of their iron, using it to ornament many elegant and spacious buildings. (Mosiah 11:3,8).
Olmec iron artifacts have been discovered, which correlates to the time and place of the Jaredites.
Perhaps they wanted to talk about steel? The KJV also mentions steel, while modern translations use "bronze" since the hebrew נְחוּשָׁה "nechushah" means "copper" or "bronze". I think it is likely the Book of Mormon just followed the same KJV translation style, and the word also referred to copper or bronze.
That being said, Latter-day Saint linguist Brian D. Stubbs has published his findings, claiming he has found 1,528 sets of cognates between native American language group Uto-Aztecan and two versions of Semitic and with Egyptian. Obviously this is very fringe, but I think it's pretty interesting.
The Book of Abraham
The article says that November 27, 1967 saw "the announcement of the rediscovery of Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham (BOA) Egypitan papyri." I don't know whether it was announced that day or not, but that was the day the papyri was presented to the church. High-definition pictures of the pages are available in the Joseph Smith Papers project. As you can see from viewing them, Facsimiles 2 and 3 are still missing. This was not all the Book of Abraham papyri, just 12 pages of it. (Contrary to the TIL title, it wasn't "just a page" either.)The article goes on to say how the church "was slow to have scholars in Egyptology examine and translate the scrolls." I thought this was odd, given that they published their findings only two months later in the January 1968 issue of the Improvement Era. The church also published photos in the February issue. These articles identified at least some of them as from the Book of the Dead, and that it was unclear whether the other pieces (besides Facsimile 1) had a direct connection with the Book of Abraham.
I suppose it's different looking back 50 years later, so perhaps Ferguson had a right to be impatient. The article goes on to talk about how Ferguson was surprised when Hugh B. Brown agreed with him that the papyrus did not contain the Book of Abraham. This is what Hugh Nibley published in the Improvement Era, but I suppose Nibley was a scholar, not an apostle.
The article also also speaks about Facsimile 1, that instead the idolatrous priest Elkenah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice, "in reality it is a well known scene of the Egyptian god of embalming (Anubus), standing over a corpse on an embalming table."
That is a well-known scene, and would be typical. Except unlike every other couch scene, the figure in facsimile 1 is not a corpse, but is drawn to indicate that the person is still alive.
These were the only things brought up on the Book of Abraham. For more information, check out the church essay on the topic.
Other
The article quotes Hugh Nibley, that "if solid evidence of such a trial [1826 glasslooking trial] were ever brought forth, it would be 'the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith.'" What they leave out is the context of the quote-- the way the story goes, Miss Pearsall tore the record of examination from her uncle's docket book, Judge Neely, and took it to Utah and went to work with Episcopalian Bishop Daniel S. Tuttle. She dies in 1872. Charles Marshall copies the record and has it published in Frazer's Magazine in 1873, the article is reprinted two months later in Eclectic Magazine. In 1883, Tuttle publishes the record in the Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia. Tuttle gives it to the Methodists, who publish it in the Christian Advocate in 1886. The latter two have a number of differences from the first two. After that, the record was lost.
Long before then, Oliver Cowdery published in the Messenger and Advocate in October 1835 briefly that Joseph was brought before the authorities and was acquitted. Hugh Nibley did not believe the trial was damning. Nibley was directing his words towards Bishop Tuttle-- if he really believed it to be damning, why did he not act like it was?
Anyway, that's a lot of words. If I were to summarize-- it's not so much that the evidence Ferguson found disproved the church. Rather, it disproved certain preconceptions. Although there is supporting evidence, my testimony is not based on archaeological evidence-- it is based on a witness from the Holy Ghost. When I was confronted with this type of "contradictory" information, instead of dropping my faith, I instead drop my incorrect assumptions.
I'm reminded of a joke: "An astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks 'How odd. All the sheep in Scotland are black!' 'No, no no!' says the physicist. 'Only some Scottish sheep are black.' The mathematician rolls his eyes at this companions' muddled thinking and says, 'In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears to be black from here some of the time.'"
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