View source for Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Book of Mormon Problems

{{Main Page}}  
{{H1
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Book of Mormon Problems
|H=Response to MormonThink page "Book of Mormon Problems"
|T=[[../|MormonThink]]
|A=Anonymous
|<=[[../Translation of the Book of Mormon|Translation of the Book of Mormon]]
|>=[[../Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon|Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon]]
}}
[[File:Mormonthink.chart.book.of.mormon.problems.png|center|frame]]
<onlyinclude>
{{H2
|L=Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink/Book of Mormon Problems
|H=Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Book of Mormon Problems"
|S=
|L1=Response to claim: "pictographic and literary evidence of horses in the New World (outside of the Book of Mormon) is unknown"
|L2=Response to claim: "that the horses described in the BOM were really deer or tapirs is absolutely ridiculous"
|L3=Response to claim: "why they would let this most useful of all animals disappear and leave absolutely no trace of its existence"
|L4=Response to claim: "Solomon Spalding, in his fictional piece Manuscript Story, mentions horses in connection with the inhabitants of the New World"
|L5=Response to claim: "The Church added the word coins starting in 1920 to the chapter summaries in order to clarify what the text of the chapter was about"
|L6=Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon explicitly states that the "Liahona", was a DIRECTOR"
|L7=Response to claim: "The FAIR apologists are the same people that make "horse" mean "tapir" and "steel" somehow they make into wooden clubs"
|L8=Response to claim: "LDS apologists will search and search until they find someone that will support their claims"
|L9=Response to claim: "scientists agree that elephants did not exist in the Americas"
|L10=Response to claim: "every soil coring taken in Central America should show traces of wheat, barley, and flax pollen"
|L11=Response to claim: "all of these animals and plants existed in abundance in the Americas when the Nephites and Lamanites lived as they were brought there by Lehi and his family"
|L12=Response to claim: "Archaeology says that wheels were not used for travel in Pre-Columbian America"
|L13=Response to claim: "If the Lamanites, Nephites or any other peoples used the wheel for any length of time, they would not have simply abandoned its use for any reason"
|L14=Response to claim: "there appears to be no existing archeological evidence which directly supports the Book of Mormon"
|L15=Response to claim: "Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the entire Book of Mormon narrative occurred within a very limited geographical location"
|L16=Response to claim: "reports circulated in LDS culture that the Book of Mormon was being used by the Smithsonian to guide primary archaeological research"
|L17=Response to claim: "it should be fairly easy to locate a temple 'like unto the temple of Solomon'"
|L18=Response to claim: "the account of Thomas Stuart Ferguson...His efforts and the efforts of his foundation ended in failure"
|L19=Response to claim: "The Nahom case provides evidence...of the willingness of LDS scholars to look anywhere in their despair to find a shred of validation"
|L20=Response to claim: "Both books were fifty miles away from where the translation was being done"
}}
</onlyinclude>

==Response to claim: "pictographic and literary evidence of horses in the New World (outside of the Book of Mormon) is unknown"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=The first apologist argument that they did not find archeological evidence of lions in Palestine until very recently is not applicable since pictographic and literary evidence of horses in the New World (outside of the Book of Mormon) is unknown. There were writings and drawings of lions in Palestine and horses used by the Huns yet there are no writings or drawings of any modern-day horses by the natives of the Americas. The Native Americans had absolutely no knowledge of horses until Columbus and the Spaniards introduced them to the New World.
}}
{{information|There is limited information regarding the role of horses in Book of Mormon culture. It does not, however, appear that they played the type of role that they did among the Huns. Horses in Book of Mormon times may have simply been used for food.
}}
{{:Question: Why are horses considered an anachronism in the Book of Mormon?}}
{{:Question: What is the origin of the modern horse in the New World?}}
{{:Source:BoM verses:Horses}}
{{:Question:What role do horses ''not'' play in the Book of Mormon?}}
{{:Question:Have any ancient horse remains from the Nephite period been found in the New World?}}
{{:Question:Why don't potential pre-Columbian horse remains in the New World receive greater attention from scientists?}}
{{:Question:Could ancient Americans have expanded the definition of "horse" to include new meanings?}}
{{:Source:JBMS:10:1:Out of the Dust:Horse bones in Yucatan}}
{{:Source:Martin:The Discovery of America:Science 179:974:No theoretical reason mastodons, horses and slots could not have survived}}
{{:Source:Grayson:Deciphering North American Pleistocene Extinctions:5:losses...ended in Florida perhaps as recently as 2000 years ago}}
{{:Source:Bernardino de Sahagun:The War of Conquest: How It Was Waged Here in Mexico:Aztecs viewed Spanish horses as deer}}
{{:Source:Reexploring the Book of Mormon:Ch:26:1:Excavations at the Post-Classic site of Mayapan in Yucatan in 1957}}

==Response to claim: "that the horses described in the BOM were really deer or tapirs is absolutely ridiculous"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=The second apologist argument that the horses described in the BOM were really deer or tapirs is absolutely ridiculous. Joseph Smith knew what a horse was and certainly the 'most correct book on earth' wouldn't mistranslate deer for horse 14 times. Can you imagine a tapir pulling the chariots as described in the Book of Mormon? Joseph managed to come up with proper nouns like Curelom and Cumom and Ziff, Senine...but he couldn't get the real name for whatever he substituted horse for?
}}
{{misinformation|Nobody is claiming that horses "were really deer or tapirs." What has been suggested is that an authentic ancient practice called "loan-shifting" may have expanded the name "horse" to apply to other animals.
}}
{{:Question: Do Mormon apologists claim that the horse referred to in the Book of Mormon is actually a deer or tapir?}}
{{:Question: What is "loan-shifting"?}}

==Response to claim: "why they would let this most useful of all animals disappear and leave absolutely no trace of its existence"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Editor Comments: As children, we were all taught in American History classes about the profound impact that horses had on the Indians once they were introduced to the New World by the Europeans. We have a hard time believing that all the history books, scientists, Indian records, etc. are all wrong about something that was so important to the Native Americans. If the ancient inhabitants of the Americas really had the horse as described in the BOM, we can't conceive of how or why they would let this most useful of all animals disappear and leave absolutely no trace of its existence.
}}
{{misinformation|The Book of Mormon never indicates that the horse was "most useful of all animals." The fact that they ultimately disappeared depends upon what they were doing with them. During Nephite times, the horse may have been used for food, and it is entirely feasible that they could have gone extinct during this period. To the Jaredites, the Book of Mormon indicates that the elephant was more useful than the horse. Even the cureloms and cumoms were more useful than the horse. If horses were used as a source of food, then it isn't hard to imagine why they disappeared.
{{s||Ether|9|19}}
<blockquote>
And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.
</blockquote>
}}

==Response to claim: "Solomon Spalding, in his fictional piece Manuscript Story, mentions horses in connection with the inhabitants of the New World"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Interesting note: Solomon Spalding, in his fictional piece Manuscript Story, mentions horses in connection with the inhabitants of the New World. So perhaps it's no wonder that the author(s) of the BOM might make the same mistake.
}}
{{propaganda|You don't need to know anything about ''Spalding'' to assume that the inhabitants of the New World might have had horses for a long time&mdash;all you have to do is look at what the Indians were riding in the 19th-Century.
}}

==Response to claim: "The Church added the word coins starting in 1920 to the chapter summaries in order to clarify what the text of the chapter was about"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=we'd just like to add the following common sense items: The Church added the word coins starting in 1920 to the chapter summaries in order to clarify what the text of the chapter was about. Why would they use the word 'coins'? It was obvious to the Church (and anyone else reading the text) that the text of the BOM was referring to coins and a monetary system. Do you think that the Church just casually adds words to their sacred scriptures specifically for the purpose of summarizing and clarifying the text without being pretty confident they are doing so correctly?
}}
{{propaganda|The original 1830 text of the Book of Mormon does not contain the word "coins." It was added to a chapter heading upon the ''assumption'' that the monetary units described must have been coins, but it was not added in order to "clarify what the text of the chapter was about." However, seeing "coins" in the Book of Mormon occurs when readers apply their modern expectations and an inadequately close reading of the text. Such was the case with the addition of the word "coins" to the chapter heading in the 1920s. The word has since been removed in the most recent edition.
}}
{{:Question: Does the Book of Mormon refer to "coins"?}}
{{:Source:Welch:JBMS 8:2:this sidelight in the book of Alma contains enough facts to support meaningful parallels between King Mosiah's weights and measures and those used in other ancient cultures}}

==Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon explicitly states that the "Liahona", was a DIRECTOR"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Critic's Response: The Book of Mormon explicitly states that the "Liahona", was a DIRECTOR, it was certainly used by Lehi's party to DIRECT them in the wilderness, and Alma the younger even made more clarification of its nature by calling it a DIRECTOR and COMPASS&mdash;this is an anachronism because the COMPASS which DIRECTED one's course wasn't invented yet for many centuries. FAIR grasps at straws by stating “In every case, it is clear that, at least in Jacobean England, the word was regularly treated as meaning either a round object, or something which moved in a curved fashion. We do not live in Jacobean England nor did Joseph Smith nor the Nephites.
}}
{{misinformation|The Liahona was not a magnetic compass. Directions were provided on the object.
}}
{{:Question: Was the Liahona simply a magnetic compass that was out of place in 600 B.C.?}}

==Response to claim: "The FAIR apologists are the same people that make "horse" mean "tapir" and "steel" somehow they make into wooden clubs"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=
Also notice how the FAIR apologists blame you for taking "director" to mean "director". The FAIR apologists are the same people that make "horse" mean "tapir" and "steel" somehow they make into wooden clubs with obsidian (volcanic glass) chunks all stuck into it called "macahuitl", and Nephite coinage means anything other than gold & silver monetary units, and Lehi & company conquered another race and interbred with them without being mentioned in the Book of Mormon at all in an attempt to cloud and detract from the real problem regarding Native American DNA, and there's a second Hill Cumorah on the grassy knoll.....and a whole litany of things that should be plain and precious from the most correct book on earth.
}}
{{propaganda|FairMormon does not claim that "horse" means "tapir." FairMormon does not make "steel" into "wooden clubs." FairMormon does not claim that "Nephite coinage means anything other than gold & silver monetary units." (What does that phrase ''mean'' anyway?) FairMormon simply notes that the word "coins" isn't part of the Book of Mormon text and was added to a chapter heading in the 20th-century. This is a historical fact. FairMormon does not claim that Lehi "conquered another race." FairMormon does not claim that there is a "second Hill Cumorah on the grassy knoll." FairMormon has extensive information that addresses the issue of Native American DNA.
}}

==Response to claim: "LDS apologists will search and search until they find someone that will support their claims"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=LDS apologists will search and search until they find someone that will support their claims, whether they are really qualified or not as shown above. The fact is the vast majority of non-Mormon scientists support the views of the critics as that is where the critics get their information from in the first place - the general scientific community. 
}}
{{propaganda|The critics are using circular reasoning. If a scientist ''did'' find the Book of Mormon account persuasive, they would become Mormons--which would, presumably, make them unreliable for MormonThink. Most of the "general scientific community" have not examined the Book of Mormon, and are not willing to comment on it or any other religious text. Believers do not dispute the scientific information as Mormonthink does when it is inconvenient.  They simply disagree with the critics about what that information ''means'', and how it ought to be applied to the issues raised by the Book of Mormon. MormonThink unsuccessfully engages in [[Logical_fallacies/Page_1#Appeal to authority|arguing from authority]] rather than honestly examining and debating the available evidence.
}}

==Response to claim: "scientists agree that elephants did not exist in the Americas"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim= Regarding the elephants cited by the apologists, first off all scientists agree that elephants did not exist in the Americas, however Mastodons, which are not elephants, did exist in stone-age times. Giving Joseph Smith some latitude here and equating elephants with mastodons, here's what one of the most respected scientific organizations in the world, the National Geographic Society says:
Mastodons lived in North America starting about 2 million years ago and thrived until 11,000 years ago—around the time humans arrived on the continent—when the last of the 7-ton (6.35-metric-ton) elephant like creatures died off. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/10/061003-mastodons.html . So although Mastodons (once again not elephants) lived in the Americas, they died out several thousands of years before the Jaredites even came to the Americas.
}}
{{misinformation|There is substantial circumstantial evidence that New World natives were familiar with the elephant, and they only need to have existed during early Jaredite times since they are never mentioned by the Nephites.
}}
{{:Question: In what context are elephants mentioned in the Book of Mormon?}}
{{:Source:Wikipedia:Mammoth:Mammoths are members of the family Elephantidae}}
{{:Source:Johnson:Men and Elephants in America:1952:Probably it is safe to say that American Proboscidea have been extinct for a minimum of 3000 years}}
{{:Source:Miller and Roper:Animals in the Book of Mormon:Interpreter:Elephants:Survival until the time of the Jaredites}}
{{:Source:Miller and Roper:Animals in the Book of Mormon:Interpreter:Elephants:Traditions of giant beasts with long noses}}

==Response to claim: "every soil coring taken in Central America should show traces of wheat, barley, and flax pollen"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=What does archaeology tell us of the presence or absence of the crops Smith claimed were the staples of ancient America? No remains of wheat or domesticated barley have ever been found. In fact, the one possible pre-Columbian specimen of barley discovered at a site in Arizona [not a Book of Mormon location anyway per apologists] is of a species different from the species of domesticated barley allegedly brought from the Near East. And what of flax? No dice, again. Fortunately for lovers of truth, the Mormon apologists cannot simply say we haven't been looking in the right place, or that the remains of these plants have all perished with the passage of time. The reason for our good fortune is the fact that these domestic plants are all flowering plants. As such, they produce pollen - in great abundance. If the Mormonic civilizations had been growing these crops for even a few decades - let alone the thousands of years allegedly chronicled by the Book of Mormon - every soil coring taken in Central America should show traces of wheat, barley, and flax pollen. Pollen is one of the most indestructible natural objects known.
}}
{{propaganda|So, as we read this, "no remains of wheat or domesticated barley have ever been found"...except the "barley discovered at a site in Arizona," but it doesn't count because it is a "different species of domesticated barley"? Well, never mind the barley, lets talk about ''flax''. As an aside, "So-called Mormonic civilizations"?  Who calls them that?  The critic is apparently not very familiar with even the basics if they think that this term is ever used in the Church or the scholarly literature.
}}

==Response to claim: "all of these animals and plants existed in abundance in the Americas when the Nephites and Lamanites lived as they were brought there by Lehi and his family"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=[A]ccording to the Book of Mormon, all of these animals and plants existed in abundance in the Americas when the Nephites and Lamanites lived as they were brought there by Lehi and his family around 600 B.C. So how can scientists say that none of these animals and plants existed in America when the scriptures clearly report they did? Either the BOM or all of these scientists must be in error.
}}
{{misinformation|Lehi's family started their journey from Jerusalem with plants and animals.  It is unclear, however, that by the time they had reached the Old World seacoast at Bountiful that these things remained with them--given how much they suffered from their eight years' wandering in the wilderness and near-starvation, it seems unlikely that much would have been left. Even if Lehi's group did bring plants and animals with them that they were familiar with, does not mean that all of these things survived. Plants, in particular, are sensitive to climate conditions. The climate conditions in the New World were quite different from those in Jerusalem. Local plants were already domesticated, and would have quickly become staples&mdash;witness, for example, how quickly corn (the New World's maize) becomes a key Nephite cereal crop.
}}

==Response to claim: "Archaeology says that wheels were not used for travel in Pre-Columbian America"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Archaeology says that wheels were not used for travel in Pre-Columbian America. The knowledge of the wheel for transportation may have been in existence but seems to be limited to the use in toys. If the Nephites and Lamanites used chariots, why wouldn't this extremely valuable idea continue to be used by the descendants of the Ancient Americans?
}}
{{misinformation|There is no description of "wheels" in the Book of Mormon.  MormonThink is again extrapolating beyond the evidence. "Chariots" are mentioned, but it is not clear what they are or what role the played.  They do not play the role that chariots played in the Old Testament: they are not used in combat, and the Book of Mormon never states that anyone rides on them. 
}}

==Response to claim: "If the Lamanites, Nephites or any other peoples used the wheel for any length of time, they would not have simply abandoned its use for any reason"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=If the Nephites and Lamanites used the wheel for transportation in the form of chariots, then they wouldn't have simply stopped using them for "religious symbolism associated with the Sun" as proposed by the apologists. Why on earth would the heathen Lamanites care about offending some 'Sun god' by using a wheel when they didn't care about offending the 'real God' by breaking his commandments continually? If the Lamanites, Nephites or any other peoples used the wheel for any length of time, they would not have simply abandoned its use for any reason.
}}
{{misinformation|The question is not whether ''Nephites and Lamanites'' would have ceased to use them, but whether ''later Amerindian tribes'' refused to use the wheel even when they knew about it. MormonThink assumes that ''anyone'' who knows about the wheel will necessarily use it.  But, this is false, since ''later Amerindian tribes'' refused to do so even when the Spanish introduced it. Ancient cultures simply do not always act the way MormonThink claims they would. This is not to say that the Nephites and Lamanites had the wheel--there is no suggestion that they did--but simply to demonstrate that being aware of the wheel does not mean that people will always use it, or continue to do so.  

Just because Lamanites reject the "true God" (from the Nephite's point of view) does not mean they wouldn't have their own religious beliefs and taboos. Lamanites did not reject the Nephite view of God and thus become atheists&mdash;they had their own religious world-view, with gods that could punish wrongful acts (e.g., {{s||Alma|18|5}}).

"Some American cultures – after the wheel was introduced by the Spanish – refused to use the wheel because of its religious symbolism associated with the Sun.18 For hundreds of years others did not take advantage of the Spanish-introduced wheel because it was not practical in the Mesoamerican jungle terrain." - Mike Ash, "[http://209.188.95.163/~meridian/church/article/6358?ac=1?ac=1 Book of Mormon 'Anachronisms' Part 3: Warfare]," ''Meridian Magazine'' (15 May 2006). Note that this author does not claim that the Nephites or Lamanites quit using the wheel--but:

# some New World cultures rejected the wheel for religious reasons;
# some New World cultures rejected the wheel because it was not practical in their environment.

This disproves MormonThink's rather naive view of what people "would not have simply" done, which is all the argument is intended to do.
}}

==Response to claim: "there appears to be no existing archeological evidence which directly supports the Book of Mormon"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Despite some LDS member's claims, there appears to be no existing archeological evidence which directly supports the Book of Mormon. There are scholars within the church that will point to a few scattered indirect parallels within existing Old World and Ancient American history and archaeology in an attempt to lend credence to the possibility that such a civilization existed.  
}}
{{disinformation|This is a popular statement made by ex-Mormons. The reality is that there is plenty of supporting evidence.
}}
{{parabreak}}
{{epigraph|Note that word “directly.” Archaeology very often doesn’t “directly” support claims. You often are having to draw inferences from the data. You know, the rocks in the foundations of buildings don’t speak for themselves usually, and there are relatively few inscriptions. I mean, even Jerusalem itself: we’ve known from tradition where is was located, but it was only relatively recently that an inscription was found actually identifying that city as Jerusalem. So, there are limits to archaeology. But again I mention John Sorenson, the writing of John Clark, Brant Gardner, Mark Wright. If the author of the letter has dealt with them there’s no sign of it. I don’t see any evidence that he’s engaged them. <br><br>&mdash;Daniel C. Peterson, [http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2014-fairmormon-conference/reflections-letter-ces-director "Some Reflections on That Letter to a CES Director,"] ''2014 FairMormon Conference''
}}
{{:Question: What criticisms are raised with regard to Book of Mormon archaeology compared to that of the Bible?}}
{{:Question: What archaeological evidence might be considered the minimal irrefutable proof needed to convince a non-believing world of the authenticity of the Nephite scripture?}}
{{:Question: How would an archaeologist distinguish a Christian's pot from that of a non-Christian?}}
{{:Question: What do we find when we turn to the records of the ancient (i.e. before A.D. 400) Americas?}}
{{:Question: How would Book of Mormon archaeology compare to that of the Bible?}}
{{:Question: What do we find in Mesoamerican archaeology with respect to place names, such as city names?}}
{{:Question: How does archaeology in the Old World compare to the first chapters in the Book of Mormon?}}
{{:Question: How does archaeology in the New World fit with the Book of Mormon?}}

==Response to claim: "Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the entire Book of Mormon narrative occurred within a very limited geographical location"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the entire Book of Mormon narrative occurred within a very limited geographical location in Central America and therefore would be virtually undetectable by means of modern research. Unfortunately for these scholars, this theory (and the different variations of it that exist) directly contradicts nearly a century and a half of past statements by high-ranking church leaders, past prophets, the Book of Mormon text, the Doctrine and Covenants (which specifically identifies North American Natives as Lamanites) and even Joseph Smith himself. If one is to accept any variation of this 'limited geography theory', one must completely disregard the LDS church's current and past declarations on the matter and basically stand in direct opposition to current and past church teachings.
}}
{{disinformation|The limited geography model of the Book of Mormon has been around since 1926. Matt Roper notes, "It is not known how much these studies influenced the interpretations of Latter-day Saints; their first versions of a fully limited Book of Mormon geography began to appear in the years from 1920 to 1926. In an article for the Improvement Era, Janne Sjodahl outlined the key features of these interpretations without criticism or condemnation. In addition to his own modified hemispheric view, which placed the narrow neck of land at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Sjodahl reviewed the approaches of George Reynolds and Joel Ricks,111 which generally followed those of Orson Pratt." <ref> Matt Roper, "Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations," ''The FARMS Review'' 16/2 (2004)</ref>
}}
{{parabreak}}
{{epigraph|This [claim that the Limited Geography is a recent invention of apologists] is simply not true. The Limited Geography Model has been created because the Book of Mormon demands it. You can put together all the travel distances and travel times in the Book of Mormon and it’s very clear that they’re not going far in any direction. We’re not talking about Patagonia to the Aleutian Islands. It’s simply not possible. And so, the text forces this. This sort of thing has been in the works for a long time, before there was any talk about DNA, before the discovery of the DNA double-helix model. DNA was not an issue when this was being created. This is not controversial. This can easily be shown that the limited Mesoamerican model has been in the works for decades. It just wasn’t published until the 1980s, but it existed and was distributed in a kind of summarized underground form for a long time before it was actually published.<br><br>&mdash;Daniel C. Peterson, [http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2014-fairmormon-conference/reflections-letter-ces-director "Some Reflections on That Letter to a CES Director,"] ''2014 FairMormon Conference''
}}
* This is false, and demonstrates that MormonThink does not understand the [[Book_of_Mormon_and_DNA_evidence/Summary|genetic data]] at all.
* It makes no difference whether Nephites and Lamanites filled the entire continent and were the ''only'' source of human DNA, or whether Lehi's party was a tiny group introduced into a sea of "natives."
* Genetically, if Lehi had ''any'' descendants, then by Joseph Smith's time (when the Doctrine and Covenants was given) [[Book_of_Mormon/Lamanites/Relationship_to_Amerindians/Descendants_of_Lehi|''all'' Amerindians would have been descendants of Lehi]].  This is basic population genetics.
* Furthermore, the Church has always insisted that there is ''[[Book_of_Mormon_geography/Statements/No_revealed_geography|no revealed geography]]''.  Trying to claim otherwise, as MormonThink does, "one must completely disregard the LDS church's current and past declarations."
* FairMormon has an enormous collection of [[Book_of_Mormon/Geography/Statements|statements]] by LDS leaders and writers.  It shows that MormonThink's claim is false.
* Furthermore, the reason people adopted a "[[Book_of_Mormon/Geography/New_World/Limited_Geography_Theory|limited geography]]" view of the Book of Mormon is because of ''the Book of Mormon text itself.''  MormonThink is wrong to say that it contradicts the Book of Mormon.  If anything, it is a hemispheric model that is unworkable textually.
* Note, though, that MormonThink does not wish to allow this approach, because it makes their criticisms impotent.
|quote=
* The essential concept is not intuitively obvious, but it is well established. The key point is this: over time, one's descendants either vanish fairly quickly or expand dramatically. After a certain point, if one has any descendants, then all (or virtually all) people are descendants....one population geneticist...discuss[ed] the question of whether Jesus could have descendants still living:
::If anyone living today is descended from Jesus, so are most of us on the planet. That absurd-sounding statement is an inevitable consequence of the strange and marvelous workings of human ancestry. . . . Say you go back 120 generations, to about the year 1000 B.C....your ancestors then included everyone in the world who has descendants living today. . . . If Jesus had children (a big if, of course) and if those children had children so that Jesus' lineage survived, then Jesus is today the ancestor of almost everyone living on Earth. True, Jesus lived two rather than three millenniums ago, but a person's descendants spread quickly from well-connected parts of the world like the Middle East. . . . In addition to Jesus . . . we're also all descended from Julius Caesar, from Nefertiti, from Confucius . . . and from any other historical figure who left behind lines of descendants and lived earlier than a few thousand years ago. Genetic tests can't prove this, partly because current tests look at just a small fraction of our DNA. But if we're descended from someone, we have at least a chance—even if it's a very small chance—of having their DNA in our cells. . . . People may like to think that they're descended from some ancient group while other people are not. But human ancestry doesn't work that way, since we all share the same ancestors just a few millenniums ago.
: If everyone now alive can share ancestry with someone who lived two thousand years ago, then it becomes plausible—even overwhelmingly likely—that Lehi would be an ancestor to virtually all modern-day Amerindians, given that he lived half a millennium earlier than Christ....Lehi need not be the dominant or "principal" ancestor—but if there are any Lehi descendants, then the vast majority of the pre-Columbian population shared Lehi as an ancestor prior to contact. - {{FR-22-1-5}}

==Response to claim: "reports circulated in LDS culture that the Book of Mormon was being used by the Smithsonian to guide primary archaeological research"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=During the early 1980s, reports circulated in LDS culture that the Book of Mormon was being used by the Smithsonian to guide primary archaeological research. This rumor was brought to the attention of Smithsonian directors who, in 1996, sent a form letter to inquiring parties stating that the Smithsonian did not use the Book of Mormon to guide any research, and included a list of specific reasons Smithsonian archaeologists considered the Book of Mormon historically unlikely.
}}
{{information|The current Smithsonian letter is correct: The Book of Mormon is a religious document and not a scientific guide.
}}
{{:Question: Does the Smithsonian Institution send out a letter regarding the use of the Book of Mormon as a guide for archaeological research?}}

==Response to claim: "it should be fairly easy to locate a temple 'like unto the temple of Solomon'"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Nephi writes that his people constructed a temple "like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine." Where is this temple? There are ruins from a myriad of other non-Book of Mormon peoples that have survived for thousands of years. The Book of Mormon never records the destruction of this temple and therefore it should be fairly easy to locate a temple "like unto the temple of Solomon" which, according to the biblical narrative, took many years and many thousands of workmen to build (though Nephi's original colonizing party could not have numbered more than 30-40 in totality at the time he records the construction of the temple).
}}
{{disinformation|This is nonsense. Of all the construction that has occurred in Mesoamerica over thousands of years, much of which was constructed upon the ruins of earlier structures, and with only 5% of Mesoamerican ruins explored, the statement that this temple "should be fairly easy to locate" is naive at best.
}}
{{:Question: Were there not enough people available in Nephi's time to build a temple "after the manner of the temple of Solomon"?}}
{{:Question: Was Nephi's temple "similar in splendor" to Solomon's temple?}}

==Response to claim: "the account of Thomas Stuart Ferguson...His efforts and the efforts of his foundation ended in failure"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=[W]e examine the account of Thomas Stuart Ferguson; President of the New World Archaeological Foundation, the only LDS Church-sponsored organization to ever be commissioned with the task of attempting to prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon outside the subjective supernatural realm of faith-based testimony. His efforts and the efforts of his foundation ended in failure and the Church has since ceased to sponsor archaeological expeditions to verify its keystone document's authenticity.
}}
{{misinformation|Ferguson was not in charge of the archaeology program at BYU. He wasn't even an archaeologist - he was a lawyer for whom archaeology was a hobby.
}}
{{:Question: Was Thomas Stuart Ferguson an archaeologist?}}
{{:Source:Peterson and Roper:FR 16:1:We know of no one who cites Ferguson as an authority, except countercultists}}
{{:Source:Peterson:FR 16:1:makes every effort to portray Ferguson's apparent eventual loss of faith as a failure for 'LDS archaeology'}}
{{:Source:Gee:FR 10:2:Ferguson is largely unknown to the vast majority of Latter-day Saints; his impact on Book of Mormon studies is minimal}}

==Response to claim: "The Nahom case provides evidence...of the willingness of LDS scholars to look anywhere in their despair to find a shred of validation"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=The Nahom case provides evidence, not of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but of the willingness of LDS scholars to look anywhere in their despair to find a shred of validation for their erroneous beliefs. The "NHM" inscription is the most important piece of geographical "evidence" Mormons have for their claims. The refutation of this inscription in regard to the Book of Mormon placename "Nahom" shows once again that there is no archaeological support from Mormonism, and no amount of appealing to "plausibility" will alter that fact. As mentioned at the top of this article, the "NHM" find is a classic example of the fallacy of irrelevant proof.
}}
{{propaganda|Latter-day Saint scholars are not in "despair," and the evidence related to Nahom is much more than simply "plausible." The critics are trying to spin this item, since there are too many convergences between the location of this inscription and the details of the Book of Mormon narrative. And Latter-day Saint scholars are not looking just "anywhere," they are looking precisely at an area that is documented in the Book of Mormon as part of Lehi's journey in the Old World.
}}
{{:Question: Why does "Nahom" constitute archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon?}}
{{:Source:Echoes:Ch5:29:Lehi's desert journey and Joseph Smith}}
{{:Source:Ricks:Some Notes on Book of Mormon Names:Interpreter:Three altar inscriptions containing NHM}}
{{:Source:Brown:Nahom and the "Eastward" Turn:JBMS 12:1}}
{{:Source:Damrosch:The Narrative Covenant:Naham means "to mourn"}}
{{:Source:Nibley:CW06:Ch19:9:Mourning by the daughters of Ishmael}}

==Response to claim: "Both books were fifty miles away from where the translation was being done"==
{{IndexClaimItemShort
|title=MormonThink
|claim=Now for the rest of the story. Allegheny College in Meadville Pennsylvania is about 50 miles from Harmony. Its library began through donations from private individuals. In 1824, Thomas Jefferson wrote that he hoped his University of Virginia could someday possess the richness of Allegheny's library. In the Allegheny's collection were both books that apologists claim were not available to Joseph Smith. Here is an 1823 catalog: D'Anville's book on ancient geography is on page 18. Niebuhr is on page 44. Both books were fifty miles away from where the translation was being done.
}}
{{disinformation|MormonThink has since removed this claim, since it was made known that it is completely incorrect and based upon a faulty Google map search.
}}
{{:Question: Did Joseph Smith have access to materials related to Nahom at Allegheny College?}}

{{endnotes sources}}