FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Bat Creek Stone
- REDIRECTTemplate:Test3
Contents
Bat Creek Stone
[[Image: The Bat Creek Stone is an artifact excavated in 1889 by the Smithsonian Institution. It was described in a 1894 publication by the same group.[1] The author of the report, Cyrus Thomas, claimed that the marks were Cherokee. A review of Thomas' subsequent publications demonstrates that he likely concluded that the items were forged, but he did not make a more public point of this because he and the Smithsonian "had placed themselves in a position such that they really could not afford to pronounce the Bat Creek stone a forgery after publishing it."[2]
After Thomas, little attention was paid to the Bat Creek stone until 1970--as noted above, Thomas had probably recognized that it was fraudulent by 1898. In 1970, Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis university argued that the stone had been oriented improperly in the original publication. If it was inverted, Gordon claimed, it became clear that the text was Paleo-Hebrew, and read "for the Jews."[3] Other scholars joined the debate, and the positions are well summarized by Mainfort and Kwas:
- As of 1993/94, the opinions of the principals in the debate may be summarized as follows. Cyrus Gordon was the earliest credible proponent of the Bat Creek stone as an authentic Paleo-Hebrew inscription, though he acknowledged “problems” with three of the inscribed characters. Frank Moore Cross and Kyle McCarter pointed out additional paleographic difficulties and argued that too many of the characters were problematic for the inscription to be authentic. Huston McCulloch considered all of the inscribed characters to be legitimate Paleo-Hebrew (but disagreeing with Gordon about three of them) and presented radiocarbon evidence supporting an age for the stone in the first several centuries A.D. Finally, Mainfort and Kwas(1991, 1993a,1 993b) questioned the veracity of the find itself and presented evidence suggesting that Cyrus Thomas and his contemporaries recognized the Bat Creek stone as a fraud by the end of the nineteenth century.[4]
Some LDS people have fallen prey to those who push these artifacts as genuine.
== Notes ==
- [note] Cyrus Thomas, Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-‘91 (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.), 394.
- [note] Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. and Mary L. Kwas, "The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Exposed," American Antiquity 69/4 (2004): 762-763.
- [note] Mainfort and Kwas, 762-763.
- [note] Mainfort and Kwas, 764.
Further reading
FairMormon Answers articles
- Goble-May 2002 geographical model
- Meldrum 2003 geographical model
FairMormon web site
- FAIR, "Reviews of DNA Evidence for Book of Mormon Geography" FAIR link
External links
- Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum, "Great Lakes 'Heartland' Model" (summary page)
- Joe V. Andersen, "A critical Review of Wayne N. May's This Land: Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation."
- Brant Gradner, "This Idea: The "This Land" Series and the U.S.-Centric Reading of the Book of Mormon (A review of "This Land: Zarahemla and the Nephite Nation; This Land: Only One Cumorah!; and This Land: They Came from the East" by: Edwin G. Goble and Wayne N. May; Wayne N. May; and Wayne N. May)," FARMS Review 20/2 (2008): 141–162. off-site wiki
- Diane E. Wirth, "The Bearded, White God Is Everywhere—or Is He? (Review of: Fair Gods and Feathered Serpents: A Search for the Early Americas' Bearded White God)," FARMS Review of Books 12/1 (2000): 9–22. off-site