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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.
Matthew Roper,
Recent scholarship on Book of Mormon warfare suggests that the Mesoamerican weapon the macuahuitl fits the criteria for the Book of Mormon "sword."1 Recent critics of this position have argued that the comparison is faulty. The macuahuitl, they argue, was merely a club studded with obsidian.2 "Such flexible interpretations," insists one recent critic, "suggest a lack of methodological rigor on the part of those already certain of the Book of Mormon's ancient historicity."3 It is noteworthy that early Chroniclers of Mesoamerican culture such as Duran4 and Clavijero5 unashamedly describe this weapon as a sword. Modern Mesoamerican historians commonly use similar terminology.6 In order to shed additional light on the issue I have provided extracts from Spanish accounts of those who encountered this weapon in battle. As these examples clearly demonstrate, these witnesses almost universally describe the macuahuitl as a "sword" and in some cases these same witnesses distinguish between several kinds of swords. —(Clique aqui para continuar) [1]
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