Jeff Roundy, Author at Latter-day Saints Q & A

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 3 Comments

What’s in a Name? He is! The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints- Evidences

This video discusses President Nelson’s recent focus on using the proper name of the Church and how the name of Jesus Christ is not found in the title of any other major religious organization. Also discussed is the original organization of Christ’s Church in the New Testament which included apostles and seventies, just as found today in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So on this video in the Evidences Series I’m going to talk about the name of the Church and about the organization that leads the church, the structural aspects of that. First of all, this was inspired from the October 2018 conference where President Nelson came out and said he felt God directing him to reemphasize the original name of the Church rather than the nickname that we’ve come to be known by, the Mormon Church, but rather The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That name of the Church was given by a revelation in 1838 in Far West, Missouri. D&C 115 verse four says, “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

I did think it was interesting to look and see the, if there were any major Christian denominations with the name of Jesus Christ in their title, and if you look on the screen here, this is the last published list from the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches and this was 2012. It shows the largest 25 Christian denominations. It looks like it took about a million members to make this list. You can see that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is number four on this list, but take a minute and look at the names of all of these churches and see if anywhere you see the name Jesus Christ.

You’ll see the name Christ a couple of times, but not one of these has named their church after the Savior’s formal name of Jesus Christ. It’s interesting, and it brings to mind the scripture 3 Nephi 27, verses seven and eight, that Jesus Christ told the Nephites visiting America after His Resurrection, He said, “Therefore, whatsoever you shall do, you shall do it in my name; therefore you shall call the church in my name … And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses’ name than it be Moses’ church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if so be they are built upon my gospel.”

I thought that was interesting to point out there. The other thing I wanted to point out was the leadership of the Church and I was curious about any of these major Christian denominations, if any of them have a group of 12 apostles leading the church? None of them do except for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This was how the Lord, when He was on the Earth, established His church and He specifically… In Luke 6:13 it says, “And when it was day he called unto him his disciples, and of them he chose 12 whom also he named apostles.” Then John 15:16, it says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you.” Matthias was selected by the apostles to replace Judas, so there was this formality of having 12 apostles.

As time went on the apostles were martyred, the Church had to go almost underground. In the time of Nero in particular it was very, very dangerous. It was tough for them to even get together and communicate, and the Church fell into apostasy during this time, and there was not a body of 12 apostles going forward. That was part of the Restoration. There was also another body called the seventy. In Luke 10 verse one it says “After these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.” I thought this was interesting, and when you look at, and that’s how the the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, how they are set up and structured, as well as having a Quorum of the Seventy.

In Ephesians 4 it talks about the importance of having these apostles and prophets on the earth. “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; [which are missionaries, we’ll talk about that in another video], and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

So it was interesting that this structure that was set up was to help to bring us into the unity of the faith, which we’re far from that today, and also to help with the doctrine, to keep the doctrine pure. That’s it for this video.

Resources:

Talk:

President Nelson’s Oct 2018 General Conference Talk: The Correct Name of the Church: https://www.lds.org/general-conferenc…

Latter-day Saints’ Q&A is a video series not produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but by me, an ordinary member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an independent voice, with a passion for studying Church history and defending the faith. In this series, I provide evidences for the restoration, and address tough questions posed by critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offering faithful answers based on accurate research and historical references which will be posted at the end of each video.

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Joseph Smith’s DETAILED War Prophecy-Evidences

This video discusses the remarkably detailed prophecy Joesph Smith made about the Civil War in 1832 and reiterated in 1843. It also discusses a lessor known prophecy of after the exhaustion of this war, the focus would move to Germany (think of World Wars 1 and 2!)

Speaker 1:
So in this video on the Evidences series, I’m going to be talking about Doctrine and Covenants section 87, which is often called the prophecy on war, specifically the Civil War, in detail. There’s also a little bit from D&C section 130 verses 12 and 13. So just really quickly to read the actual verses, and then we’ll talk about how they were fulfilled very specifically. I’ll read four verses in D&C 87 and then those two verses in D&C 130.

Speaker 1:
“Verily, thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls.

Speaker 1:
And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place. For behold, the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they shall also call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and then war shall be poured out upon all nations. And it shall come to pass, after many days, slaves shall rise up against their masters, who shall be marshaled and disciplined for war.”

Speaker 1:
And then D&C 130 verses 12 and 13. This was 11 years later. So that that I just read was on Christmas Day in 1832, and this was in Ramus, Illinois in 1843.

Speaker 1:
“I prophesy, in the name of the Lord God, that the commencement of the difficulties which will cause much bloodshed previous to the coming of the Son of Man will be in South Carolina. It may probably arise through the slave question. This a voice declared to me, while I was praying earnestly on the subject, December 25th, 1832.”

Speaker 1:
So let’s just take… There’s six items in here, specifically. First, the war would begin with the rebellion of South Carolina. That is where the Civil War started. South Carolina seceded from the Union in 1860 towards the end of that year, and they were the first of 11 states to do so. It was also at Fort Sumter who was the first shot fired in the civil war. So it definitely did start at South Carolina.

Speaker 1:
Number two, it would cause the death and misery of many souls. If you look at the death count in the Civil War, it was over 620,000 people that died, which was more than all of the deaths in World War I and World War II combined. It was the greatest of all wars in U.S. history as far as death count goes. So it was definitely right on that verse. The Southern States would be divided against Northern States. That’s what the entire Civil War was. It was a split between those two, there. The Southern States would call upon other nations for assistance even upon the nation of Great Britain. And that is exactly what they did. In fact, they used “king cotton”, as they called it, to try and really pull Great Britain into the civil war, which according to international treaties, they were not supposed to do.

Speaker 1:
They ended up getting fined 15 and a half million dollars for their involvement in the Civil War from an international accord. But in fact the south even caused cotton shortages, destroyed cotton, to to be able to create problems for Great Britain to pull them in and use that as a little bit of a lever for them to participate and help and assist.

Speaker 1:
Number five, Great Britain would call upon other nations for assistance. Now this one, France, Belgium and Holland were approached by the South to have help. Great Britain may have correlated a little bit with France to pull them in a bit because they were in the same boat as far as the cotton, a desire for a cotton resource from the South. But, in the way that this is worded in D&C 87, it’s specifically talking about in that area about later wars that would be poured out upon all nations and that that’s when Great Britain would call upon others, which is exactly what they did in the World Wars. So that’s another interesting point.

Speaker 1:
The last thing on here, “War would eventually be poured out upon all nations.” It says it would start from this place. Well critics actually use that to say, “Well, the Civil War was not a world war.” Well, that was the beginning of modern warfare. It really started a new level of wars that took place and we had the two great world wars that really followed after the Civil War. We got 140 wars that took place after World War II. World War I, we lost 20 million people worldwide. World War II, we lost over 40 million people.

Speaker 1:
Also, I’ll share a quote from Orson Hyde that he published in the Millennial Star in 1862 after the Civil War had started, and he said, “You have scarcely yet read the preface of your national trouble. Many nations will be drawn into the American maelstrom that now whirls through our land; and after many days, when the demon of war shall have exhausted his strength and madness upon American soil, by the destruction of all that can court or provoke opposition, he will remove his headquarters to the banks of the Rhine.” Which is Germany and that’s really where the focus was of the World Wars I and II.

Speaker 1:
So that was a pretty eerie quote there for Orson Hyde. We do not know where this came from. Most believe that that Orson Hyde had this from Joseph Smith, but we don’t have the documentation of where that came from. Now others say, well, many could’ve predicted these things that Joseph talked about. There was a secession crisis in 1832 at the end of 1832 in South Carolina. They were looking at tariffs that were being applied on the federal level to the South and they wanted to… Essentially it was a secession crisis then and saying they were potentially going to leave. The crisis was averted. Nobody thought it was going to turn into civil war by any stretch there. But that’s why I mentioned that D&C 130 was interesting because it was 11 years later that Joseph’s basically doubling down on South Carolina being the place for this to start.

Speaker 1:
Then he also brought slavery into the issue. Now that’s another point that some will say, “Well, slaves didn’t rise up against their masters in the Civil War.” Well yes and no, possibly. It depends on how you look at it. There were approximately 187,000 soldiers fighting for the Union that were past slaves. In a sense, you could say they rose up and were fighting against their masters there. The way that it’s worded in D&C 87, it says, “after many days” this would happen, and I think this could easily have been talking about much later of people rising up against oppressive regimes, against Communism, et cetera. That easily could have been what that was referring to on there.

Speaker 1:
So one last quote I wanted to read to you, Orson Pratt shared this. He said, “When I, Orson Pratt, was a boy I traveled extensively in the United States and the Canadas preaching this restored Gospel. I had a manuscript copy of this revelation on Civil War, which I carried in my pocket, and I was in the habit of reading it to the people among whom I traveled and preached.” How did his listeners respond? Did they say, “Well, it takes no prophet to see war will start in South Carolina.” “No,” said Orson “as a general thing, the people regarded it as the height of nonsense, saying that Union was too strong to be broken, and I, they said, was led away the victim of an impostor.”

Speaker 1:
When South Carolina secession threats cooled down after 1832, did Orson begin to doubt the prophecy? “No, because I knew the prophecy was true for the Lord had spoken to me and had given me revelation. But year after year passed away without war, and now and then some of the acquaintances I had formerly made would say, ‘Well, what is going to become in that prediction? It’s never going to be fulfilled.'” Orson replied, “Wait, the Lord has his set time.”

Speaker 1:
When the war broke out in April, 1861, 28 years after the prophecy was pronounced, the Philadelphia Sunday Mercury newspaper carried a lengthy article entitled “A Mormon Prophecy.” And there’s a piece of that he said, “We have in our possession a pamphlet published at Liverpool in 1851,” the article began, referring to the civil war prophecy. “In view of our present troubles, this prediction seems to be in progress of fulfillment, whether Joe Smith was a humbug or not.” The article reprinted the entire prophecy, then noted how events were fulfilling it, and concluded regarding Joseph Smith, “Have we not had a prophet among us?”

Speaker 1:
As Fort Sumter surrendered, others, like the Mercury’s editors, remembered hearing about the prophecy. Perhaps some of those once scoffed when youthful missionary Orson Pratt pulled the prophecy from his pocket and read it now had cause to wonder, to worry, and to wish they had listened more closely to what the rest of the prophecy said.

Speaker 1:
Hope you enjoyed this video. Subscribe for more.

Resources:

Articles:

Jeff Lindsay’s blog discussing details of the prophecy: https://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ…

Kerry Shirt’s refuting critics of the prophecy in article entitled ‘A War Against the Critics of Joseph Smith’s Civil War Prophecy’ https://web.archive.org/web/201205141…

Video:

Harold B Lee Lecture Series House of Learning; Speaker – Dr Scott Esplin; Title ‘Have We Not Had a Prophet Among Us?’ – Joseph Smith’s “Civil War” Prophecy YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FActx…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

What’s the Bible doing in The Book of Mormon?

This video clarifies possible issues with Biblical passages found in The Book of Mormon. It addresses the following questions: Did Joseph Smith just plagiarize from the Bible? Why were some passages changed in the JST but the same passages were not changed when the The Book of Mormon was first translated? How did Biblical passages actually get transcribed into The Book of Mormon? And If the scholars who claim Isaiah to be written by multiple authors, some of which wrote after Lehi left Jerusalem, then how did those parts of Isaiah end up in The Book of Mormon?

Okay, today’s video we’re going to be talking about biblical passages in the Book of Mormon, some of the challenges with it.

If you’ll look on the screen there are four things we’ll talk about. Was Joseph plagiarizing the Bible by putting it in the Book of Mormon? Two, changes later made in the Joseph Smith Translation weren’t made earlier in the Book of Mormon. Three, how did Bible passages get into the Book of Mormon? And then fourth, the Isaiah problem. If multiple Isaiah authors and if part was written after Lehi left Jerusalem, then it wouldn’t have been on the brass plates.

So, first of all, about plagiarizing the Bible. Only about 7% of the Book of Mormon are biblical passages. So, we have to say, if Joseph could do 93%, he obviously could do 100%. And why would he put things in there to deceive with passages that his readership would clearly be able to identify?

I love a quote from Hugh Nibley, we’ll put on the screen here. He said, “They screamed blasphemy and plagiarism at the top of their lungs, but today any biblical scholar knows that it would be extremely suspicious if a book purporting to be the product of a society of emigrants from Jerusalem in ancient times did not quote the Bible. No lengthy religious writing of the Hebrews could conceivably be genuine if it was not full of scriptural quotations.”

To quote another writer of Christianity Today, the magazine, “Passages lifted bodily from the King James Version and that it quotes not only from the Old Testament, but also the New Testament as well.” “As to the passages lifted bodily from the KJV,” Nibley went on to say, “How else does one quote scripture if not bodily? And why should anyone quoting the Bible to American readers of 1830 not follow the only version known to them?”

In fact, if you look in the Bible, about 10% of Jesus’ daily communications were actual quotes, literally, from the Old Testament. Even modern day translators, or scholars, working on the Dead Sea Scrolls have used the King James translation of the Bible, some of them up to 90% of the scroll was actual King James Version translations. Only differences were there were identified spots within the manuscripts, Hebrew manuscripts.

Also, there’s interesting changes on the differences between the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus gave to the Nephites versus that in Jerusalem. And [inaudible 00:02:23] went through and identified the differences. And some of the ones that were, I thought, just two examples that were great. One was where Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs are the kingdom of Heaven.” To the Nephites he added, “Who come unto me.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit who come unto me.”

Then also, where he said, “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” In the Book of Mormon, it says, “They shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” So, just some examples of things that were added along with those biblical passages.

Now, the next topic about things changed in the JST. First of all, things that changed in the JST that were verses that were biblical passages in the Book of Mormon, there wasn’t anything material that was changed in there.

Also, the Joseph Smith Translation was more of, you could say, a commentary in a sense. That it was a more educated, mature, and sophisticated Joseph translating those. He also had a very flexible view of scripture. For example, in D&C 128:18, when he quoted Malachi. He said, after quoting Malachi in section 128 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the quote was, “I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands.” Then he went on and talked about some doctrine related to that.

Brigham Young also said, here’s a great quote, he observed that, “Should the Lord Almighty send an angel to re-write the Bible, it would in many places be very different from what it now is. And I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be re-written, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation.”

Now, Joseph said that the Book of Mormon was the correct, most correct book of any book on earth. But there were still, even on the title page of the Book of Mormon, it states that, “Now if there are faults, they are mistakes of men.” There.

So, moving to the third topic is how did we actually get the Bible in the Book of Mormon?

Now, the one challenge with this approach are several of the witnesses of the translation talked about Joseph not having any material with him throughout the translation process. In fact, Emma said, “He couldn’t have had anything, I would have seen it. He couldn’t have hid such a thing from me.”

So, another possibility could have been the Lord inspiring him through the seer stone with these passages. We’re told in John that the Lord can bring things to our remembrance and inspire us, especially with spiritual matters. So, these verses could have been brought through the seer stone in either a very tight word for word way or more of a looser way that allowed Joseph also to put it in to the verbiage of the day, the terminology, the King James English that he was using at that time.

Okay, the last thing to talk about is the Isaiah problem. And the challenge with this is that some scholars believe that there were sections of Isaiah possibly written by a different author after 600 B.C., after Lehi left Jerusalem. So, it couldn’t have been on the brass plate, so to speak.

And some of the big reasons they think that, scholars believe, is because there’s mention of Babylon, the Babylonian captivity, and then also Cyrus who saved the Jews, essentially, by conquering Babylon in 539 B.C. So, a few of these things are mentioned. So, that’s one of the biggest reasons. There’s also some style differences and some vocabulary differences. But those have been really inconclusive, realistically. So, the focus is on these historical settings.

There are some possible ways to look at this. One is that there could have really just been one Isaiah. And then you really don’t have a problem with this being in the Book of Mormon. It was there on the brass plate. Another way to think of this is there could have been an original Isaiah that was then tweaked a little bit by future redactors or editors that put some things in. Especially Cyrus the Great, they may have said, “Hey, this was the redeemer that Isaiah was talking about.” And then they put that in there. Cyrus is not in the Book of Mormon, but Babylon is.

Now, Babylon was often thought of as the way to escape. We want to escape from Babylon. That was an important concept for people in the Book of Mormon, as well as for the latter days, which is what the Book of Mormon was really for. And if you look at these chapters that were in the Book of Mormon, that were part of this later Isaiah, possibly, that was considered chapters really 40 through 66, possibly after Lehi left Jerusalem. It was chapters 48 through 52. And if you look specifically at those in the Book of Mormon, they have to do with fleeing from Babylon, but particularly about the latter day gathering of Israel.

So, I think the Lord really wanted to have that in the Book of Mormon. And so, he could have easily gotten it into the Book of Mormon through showing Joseph on the seer stone that these needed to be there in the language of the day, the King James translation. And so, a way for that, and another scripture:

D&C 1:24, “Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.”

And then Joseph said, “This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted, by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.”

And then I would like to finish with one last scripture that was in Ether 12:25. Where Moroni was talking about the struggle in writing and how people may mock them down the road as they read some of these things.

Verses 25 and 26 of Ether 12, “Thou hast also made our words powerful and great, even that we cannot write them; wherefore, when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words; and I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words. And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness.”

I hope you enjoyed the video and I hope it helped a little bit.

Resources:

Websites:

FairMormon website – many sub topics covering this area of study: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Bo…

https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/pu…

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Qu…

https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content…

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Qu…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

LIDAR!! Revolutionizing Archaeology and Rewriting History! -Evidences

This video discusses the recent National Geographic channel broadcast on the largest LIDAR archeology study ever performed, which took place in the jungles of Guatemala. LIDAR, combined now with supercomputers, massive data clouds and graphics processing, can create 3D maps that are revolutionizing archeology, and in the case of the Maya are rewriting their history. The video gives many examples of how these recent discoveries correlate stunningly with The Book of Mormon.

So this video in the Evidence series is going to talk about LIDAR, which is laser imaging detection and ranging, and it’s recently been deployed in a fascinating area of the world down in northern Guatemala. And there was a program that National Geographic ran on February 6th, 2018. It was called The Lost Treasure of the Maya Snake Kings, and the teaser for this show is, “See how LIDAR is revolutionizing archeology and rewriting history.” This went viral on many different media outlets.

The National Geographic story was built as, or entitled as, Exclusive: Laser Scans Reveal Maya ‘Megalopolis’ Below Guatemalan Jungle. Then BBC said, “Sprawling Maya network discovered under Guatemala jungle.” The Washington Post said, “Maya civilization was much vaster than known, thousands of newly discovered structures reveal.” NPR said, “Game Changer: Maya Cities Unearthed in Guatemala Forest Using Lasers.” The New York Times said, “Lasers Reveal a Maya Civilization So Dense it Blew Experts’ Minds.” Fox said, “Mysterious lost Maya cities discovered in Guatemalan jungle.”

So it’s a pretty exciting program. I highly suggest going and watching it online. I’ll put it in the resources section. I’m going to use some resources from Book of Mormon Resources blog that did a great job in pulling together a lot of scriptural ties from the Book of Mormon. So now respected archaeologists, because of this, are actually comparing the Maya to the ancient Chinese and the ancient Egyptians.

The way that LIDAR works is it’s expensive equipment that flies over in a grid-like pattern over these jungle areas, and they send billions of laser beams down and it penetrates through the jungle canopy and it bounces off the structures and it forms this massive amount of data. So it’s a huge data cloud, and now with super computers and graphic processing, they can create these 3D map images, so much of this … LIDAR has been around for awhile, but much of this technology is now integrated with it to be able to do these things.

They’ve picked this specific area as a fantastic place to apply the technology. In fact, they’ve talked about LIDAR to archeology is like the Hubble telescope is to astronomy. And this specific area, in fact, it’s fascinating when you watch the program because they’ll show you this, just as far as the eye can see, jungle, and then they show you what it looks like underneath there from the LIDAR detection systems. And they’ve discovered these vast, massive cities underneath.

So this specific area was a great target because many areas of the world had been urbanized or have had modern farms, things that have destroyed much of the archaeology that was there. This area, with the Maya collapse, really was preserved as the jungles took over essentially and hid and protected a lot of the structures underneath these jungles.

Now, this specific study was done in over an area of about 2100 square kilometers, and they’re going to continue going until they do about 5,000 square kilometers, which will only be about 1.4% of the Mayan area in Mesoamerica. The Maya area is about the size of Montana, roughly. It’s going to take decades really to study a lot of these things. But big picture items are starting to emerge and archaeologists have started talking a lot about these different things.

And so pulling all these resources together, I mentioned before, I put together six major categories that would be really fun to look at what the archaeologists have said or in the program that was on National Geographic, and then specific references to the Book of Mormon. And as I mentioned, there’s some great resources on the Book of Mormon Resources blog on this topic.

So first of all, highly advanced civilization. Maya civilizations … In yellow on the screen, this is what the archaeologists have said, underneath it are scripture quotes from the Book of Mormon. “Maya civilization, much more dense, complex and advanced than previous previously thought.” Jarom 1:8 says, “The people multiplied exceedingly, spread upon the face of the land, became exceedingly rich, employed fine workmanship, built buildings and machinery, worked metals, made tools of every kind, and crafted weapons of war.”

Helaman 3:14-15 adds that, “They built ships, temples, synagogues, and sanctuaries and authored many books and many records of every kind.” Okay. Another archaeologist, “We have always known that the Maya were the most advanced civilization in ancient Americas. Now we know that they were one of the most advanced in all the ancient world.” The Lord promised Jared and his brother that their seed in the New World would become, “A great nation,” and that there would be, “None greater upon all the face of the earth.” Ether 1:43.

Okay. The next category is massive population size. So archeaologists said, “Maya lowland population at the apex could have reached 15 to 20 million.” That’s why they’re considering it one of the greatest civilizations possibly now in the history of the world. Mormon 1:7 says the people in the land southward were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea. Archeologists said, “Land use was intensive, nearing 100% in many areas.” Mormon 1 says the whole face of the land had become covered with buildings.

“Tikal was three or four times larger than we thought. Previous population estimates were 60,000 at apex. The number should now be 250,000 or more. El Palmar was 40 times larger than we realized. The Maya created a vast urban sprawl.” In many places, the Book of Mormon texts mentioned large populations, “Numerous people,” Mosiah 24:3, “so many people.” 3 Nephi 5.8.

Okay. Archaeologists, “Estimates of population in the Maya area at apex have been revised upward to about 20 million. This was half the population of Europe at the time, even though the Maya occupied only one 1/30th as much land area as Europe. Mormon described the Lamanites as, “numberless hosts.” Alma 51:27.

“65,000 previously unknown structures.” Just in this 2100 square kilometer area that they started with. Mosiah 27:6 speaks of large cities and villages in all quarters of the land. Okay. Next category, road networks. Archaeologists said “vast networks of highways elevated,” notice the word ‘elevated’, “so that they function even in the rainy season.” This one really blew my mind. 3 Nephi 6:8 terminology is “many highways cast up, and many roads made.”

Next, archaeologists. “Maya cities were more interconnected with transportation infrastructure than anyone realized.” 3 Nephi 6:8 describes many highways cast up, many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place.

Then the next, “We used to think of Maya cities as isolated. They were not isolated. Networks of roads and highways connected them over vast distances.” One is reminded of the roads and highways mentioned in 3 Nephi 8:13.

Okay. The next category. Large scale agriculture. “Food production was at an industrial scale.” Helaman 6:12 mentions raising grain in abundance, many flocks and herds, and many fatlings.

“Agricultural production was on an astonishing scale with many wetlands drained and turned into irrigated fields.” Helaman 12:2 explicitly mentions agriculturalists prospering “in the increase of their fields.”

“Public works, including dikes, dams, canals, ditches and reservoirs. In some cases, Maya engineers rerouted natural stream flows.” Mormon, in describing the Nephite golden age in the land southward, mentions widespread engineering and construction works. Alma 50:12, which includes ditches, Alma 49:22.

“Agricultural terraces with irrigation systems.” Alma 17:26-27 describes a designated Lamanite place of water.

“Animal pens.” Alma 1:29 says the Nephites had an abundance of flocks and herds, and fatlings of every kind.

Okay. Next category. Prevalent warfare. “Ubiquitous fortresses, ramparts, and defensive walls.” Alma 49:13 mentions forts of security, for every city in all the land round about. Alma 49:18 emphasizes the highness of the bank which had been thrown up, and the depth of the ditch which had been dug round about. Mormon 50: 4-6 calls Captain Moroni’s fortifications towers and strongholds. Alma 52:6 describes Teancum preparing defenses by casting up walls round about and preparing places of resort.

“”Endemic warfare over centuries was the norm.” Mormon 8. Moroni at 400 A.D. said “The Lamanites are at war one with another, and the whole face of this land is one continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war.

“Warfare was particularly prevalent in the early classic 250-500.” And again, in the Book of Mormon, Moroni wrote that their wars are exceedingly fierce among themselves.

The last. “There were much more war among the Maya than we had ever supposed. Defensive structures and fortifications were everywhere. Tikal had a large fortress protecting it.” The Nephites strengthened “so many cities … all of which were strongly fortified, after the manner of the fortifications of Moroni.” Alma 51:27.

And the last category was disaster prone landscapes. Archaeologists said, “Many people lived on marginal swampy lands.” Helaman 11:20 uses the terminology “waste places”. 4 Nephi 1:9 speaks of cities sunk in water.

“There was an earthwork wall surrounding Tikal 5 meters high and 16 kilometers long. Archaeologists have begun calling it ‘the great wall of Tikal'”. The Book of Mormon describes “a strong wall of timbers and earth to an exceeding height”, Alma 53:4. “Encircling Bountiful with similar earthworks surrounding Gid”, Alma 55:25-26. And last, “stone quarries”. Alma 48:8 lists banks of earth and walls of stone as structural components.

That was a lot of stuff very quickly. Hopefully you found that very fascinating and very interesting. Subscribe for more videos.

Resources:

Video:

National Geographic Channel into video to broadcast on the LIDAR study: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/…

Website:

Website with many resources tying the Guatemalan LIDAR study to The Book of Mormon: http://bookofmormonresources.blogspot…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 1 Comment

Why Anachronisms in The Book of Mormon

This video discusses what an anachronism is, what can cause them, examples from the Bible and Book of Mormon and most importantly why they need not challenge someone’s faith.

Hey, guys. In this video we’re going to be talking about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Now, what is an anachronism? Well, here is the definition, “An element in a text that is out of time, or has not been proven to exist in the time and place of the text’s setting.” So, for example, if you are reading a book, and it said, “After George Washington retired, he enjoyed spending time with Martha watching TV in the living room,” you would know that that is an anachronism.

That is out of place. It doesn’t make sense. So, critics have used this with the Book of Mormon, saying there is things we haven’t found in the Book of Mormon from archeology, and that therefore proves that the Book of Mormon didn’t happen. It’s not historical. An example from the Book of Mormon would be a steel sword, the sword of Laban was made of steel. Prior to, just a few decades ago this was considered to be an anachronism. No steel swords have been found in Israel, but several decades ago they did find a large sword. It’s actually now on display at the Jerusalem, Israel museum, and they’ve got it dated back to the late seventh century B.C.

So, there are three things that may account for anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Number one is objects or facts not yet discovered, like the steel sword we just talked about. There is a mantra that archaeologists often will use, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, ” or in other words just because we haven’t found something doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist. There’s a great resource on the FairMormon website, where they actually show 60 items that may be considered items you could look through archaeology to try and prove, or in this case disprove as an anachronism.

As of the date 1842, 87% of the items on this list had not been confirmed. If you fast-forward now to 2005, the list now stands at only 25% in the unconfirmed category. Some fun ones, just to point out for example, that have now been confirmed that weren’t in 1842: cement, for example, highways, javelins, human sacrifice. Those are several different examples now that have been discovered.

The next category that could be anachronistic are the original authors used a term in a novel way that we do not expect. This might be, for example, people from the old world described things they see in the new world with old world terminology. An example of this might possibly be the horse. In the Shaken Faith Syndrome book, Michael Ash has a great chapter on anachronisms. He talks a lot about this number two, number three categories, and how things could work out in those categories. Things we haven’t found yet that is, so talking about the horse is an example.

He says, “In similar fashion, it is possible the Nephites used the term horse for some different, yet functions like a horse, kind of animal. Figurines, for example, of the pack-bearing South American alpacas, which are related to the camel, have been unearthed as far north as Costa Rica. Perhaps, more importantly, the Kʼicheʼ languages of highland Guatemala have expressions like keh, K-E-H, which means both deer and horse, and the cognitive kehay, which means mount or ride. An early pre-Spanish incense burner, discovered in Guatemala, shows a man riding on the back of a deer, and a stone monument dating to 1700 A.D. shows a woman riding a deer. Until recently, many people in Siberia road on the backs of deer, and in such cases the deer served as horses.”

He goes on to talk about how the Aztecs called the Spanish horses “a deer”. That’s the only term that they were familiar with to use to describe these horses that the Spaniards had, and then he says, “If early Native Americans had no problem expanding their definition of deer to include horses, why could not the Nephites expand their definition of horse to include deer if the American genus of deer in some ways acted like horses? It’s not only possible, but virtually mandatory that the same phenomenon would be found in the Book of Mormon if it really derived from an ancient culture that intermingled with another foreign culture,” so kind of interesting point there. There have been some discoveries recently, people are arguing pre-Columbian horses as well, so some interesting points there.

Number three, the modern-day translator’s choices. A great example of this would be from the King James translators translating the transcripts of the Bible, and looking at, for example the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus talked about candles on candlesticks, letting your light so shine before man. Well, there weren’t such things as candles in Jesus’s day, or candlesticks. There were oil and lamps, that’s what they used, but the King James translators thought it would be much more easier to understand for their time, and culture, to use those words, so very likely Joseph had the same experience, and maybe used some of the terms in his culture, and time, that would relate to things that we would understand in our day and age, and that’s how God often speaks to his people, and that may very well be the reason for some of these anachronisms as well.

Now, just to share, last couple of things, with you. It is challenging also where the Book of Mormon possibly took place in Mesoamerica. It’s a very hot, humid type of climate, very acidic soil. Things disintegrate very quickly there. It’s very hard for archaeologists, except for just in cave-type areas, because of this. Also, only about 2% of the areas had any kind of archaeology performed on it, of any type, so it’s a very undiscovered area as well. So, those are some challenges.

Thought I’d share a couple of things here that are interesting. Lions are mentioned in the Bible. They were just discovered in 1983, two lions, even though archaeologists have been digging things up in Israel since 1864, but prior to 1983 we didn’t throw the Bible out, because we hadn’t found lions prior to that. Horses were used by the Huns of Central Asia in fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Low estimates of 20,000 horses, high estimates of 200,000 horses, but until 1974 there wasn’t a single horse bone found in the entire territory of that empire. Interesting. Last, records say elephants roamed Syria, and Upper Euphrates well into the Middle Ages, and pharaohs used to hunt them for sport, yet they’ve now disappeared without a trace. We haven’t found any of that.

Now, with all of this I do want to finish with a quote from President Hinckley. I’ve shared this before. This was in General Conference, when he was an apostle in 1984. I want to just share a little snippet from the quote I shared before, “The evidence for its truth, for its validity in a world that is prone to demand evidence, lies not in archaeology or anthropology, though these may be helpful to some. The evidence for its truth and validity lies within the covers of the book itself. The test of its truth lies in reading it. It is a book of God. Reasonable men may sincerely question its origin; but those who read it prayerfully have come to know by a power beyond their natural senses that it is true, that it contains the word of God,” and I sincerely do believe that that is the case, and have my own witness of that.

Hope this video was helpful today. Subscribe for more videos.

Resources:

Book:

Shaken Faith Syndrome, Chp 13: Anachronisms – Michael Ash

Website:

FairMormon Website: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Bo…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Why Didn’t I Learn This In Church?

This video discusses how some elements of church history have not been widely know and the various reasons for this. It also reviews the church’s new intensified efforts of pro-actively making church history details available, accessible and understandable through efforts such as Saints, Gospel Topics Essays, Joseph Smith Papers and the Institute & Seminary curriculum.

So the video today I’m going to be talking about the phrase: Why didn’t I learn this in church? This is a common frustration that people will have when they learn new things in church history or doctrine, various topics that give them pause or concern because they didn’t understand or know these things and wonder why they didn’t learn this growing up in the church.

We are entering a new era. If you were able to watch the recent Face to Face with Elder Cook, with the launch of the new church history called Saints. It’s absolutely phenomenal. I just finished listening to the book, and it is definitely transparent, unvarnished and it’s just beautiful. Very well told history. And like I said, it is a great narrative page-turner type format.

And the church is being very forthright and transparent with many things today. The Gospel Topics Essays, the Joseph Smith Papers, the new Foundations of the Restoration course in seminary and institute, which even requires the reading of Gospel Topics Essays.

So some have wondered if the Church withheld information or told the story of their history in a more faithful type of way. And historically, if you go back to the 1900s, this was really the tradition of the time. It started really with the Puritans. The English Puritans had a focus of faithful explanation of their events telling their history. I love this quote from the book Shaken Faith Syndrome by Michael Ash, he said “While it can be said that early LDS histories intentionally withheld challenging and non-flattering information, in the context of the time this was not unique to Mormonism and is to be expected.

He also then said, “The early faith-promoting histories, however, became the source of historical knowledge for many church members and launched similar popular works for decades to come.” Then as far as discussing church curriculum, when we go and attend church on Sunday, the three hour block. The purpose of going to church is to bring people closer to God and to Christ and salvation, to feel the spirit, and to focus on gospel principles. Not necessarily to go in depth into church history discussions.

There’s also the challenge of thousands of volunteer teachers throughout the world teaching every Sunday and with various levels of knowledge, and background, education, church history knowledge, so you have that dynamic as well.

Michael Ash continued, he said, In short, church is a place for worship, spiritual edification, and enlightenment, and not for in-depth historical discussions.” Then he does say, “Because of changing times, however, and the problem that such an approach is affecting modern educated members, it is possible that we may yet see changes in the presentation of discussions on these difficult issues.”

This is written in 2013. I’m a Gospel Doctrine teacher in my ward and definitely this last year, we had a lot of discussions in the Gospel Topics Essay areas. We talked about Doctrine and Covenants and the church history. And it was very refreshing to have a lot of these discussions and have the Gospel Topics Essays as a foundational aspect of that. Also I will say one aspect is the material has been out there, it’s just having a desire to seek it out sometimes can also be the case today.

So another problem is we’re not reading like we used to. Fact recent study said that 58% of US adults never read another book after high school. If you do it from the major after college, if you go to college, 42% never read a book again after college. So it’s a challenging environment. Another couple of interesting stats I’ll share is 60% of Americans cannot name five of the Ten Commandments today. Recent survey of high school seniors, 50% thought Sodom and Gomorrah were married, and another study claimed that one third of Americans polled believed that Evangelist Billy Graham delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

The church just did this Face to Face broadcast at the Nauvoo Temple grounds, introducing Saints, the new church history. I’d like to share just some of the great snippets out of that. Matt Grow from the church history department, he says “Information has always been available but has not been emphasized. Sometimes it’s because it’s uncomfortable, sometimes because it’s not the main purpose of church meetings, which is to preach the Gospel of Salvation.” But he said also that the last 30 or 40 years, the church has had huge strides with the church history department in gathering information, especially now with the Joseph Smith Papers. They’re not trying to hide or censor history. In fact their goal he says is accessibility, and understandability.

They did point out a great thing is this new reality they called it, of living in the social media age and how things can appear in social media feeds that are challenging to members of faith, and just understanding church history and so he says, “We have a heightened responsibility to provide good answers within the household of faith.”

So I really like this quote that Matt Grow also shared, he said “The message to me of this openness…” with the Saints and the Gospel Topics Essays and all of the things, Joseph Smith Papers etc., “…is that the history of the Church can withstand scrutiny. We don’t need to be afraid of it. It is inspiring. Sometimes we will have questions, but there are good answers.

And then lastly Elder Cook, I love his comment here he talked about that there’s always been a balance to try to balance out the things that are essential that will lead to exaltation with answering questions that are of concern to some in the church. In his 22 years as a General Authority, he said the desire has always been “to be as transparent as possible, both in terms of church history and doctrine.”

So I think we’re entering a new era today with the study of church doctrine. It’s exciting to see even seminary students that will be studying the Gospel Topics Essays in depth, and it will really I think lead to a new generation of in depth understanding of church history and practices.

So that’s it for today, I hope you enjoyed it and please subscribe to the channel.

Resources:

Books:

Shaken Faith Syndrome by Michael Ash

New Church History book Saints: https://history.lds.org/saints?lang=eng

Broadcasts:

Fairmormon broadcast and article from Michael Ash “Shaken Faith Syndrome – Part-deux”: https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

Face to Face Broadcast with Elder Cook about Church History and new publication Saints: Deseret News article covering the broadcast, “Elder Cook, historians tackle tough questions about Latter-day Saint history” https://www.deseretnews.com/article/9…

Link to full broadcast: https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/face-t…

Websites:

Gospel Topics Essays: https://www.lds.org/topics/essays?lan…

Joseph Smith Papers: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org

Church History Website: https://history.lds.org

Jeff Roundy

Resources:

Resources:

Resources:

Resources:

Resources:

Resources:

Let's Be Friends!