So-Called Book of Mormon Anachronisms: People in Americas

Continuing with these posts regarding the so-called anachronisms of the Book of Mormon, critics write that:

“Additionally, linguistic studies on the evolution of the spoken languages of the Americas agree with the widely held model that homo sapiens arrived in America between 15,000 and 10,000 B.C. According to the Book of Mormon, immigrants first arrived on the American continent about 2500 BC (the presumed time period of the biblical Tower of Babel).”

Thus, to these critics, the fact that people arrived in the Western Hemisphere prior to the accepted time frame of the sectarian world, this is an anachronism—something out of place with the normal flow of historical time.

It is always interesting that, no matter how much evidence is uncovered by numerous archaeologists and anthropologists, that civilization in the Western Hemisphere settled first in the south and then moved northward, they continue to claim the opposite. First of all, there is absolutely no proof of any kind, no structures, no cities, no anything, to suggest that Alaska, Canada, or the northern United States, was settled by anyone of any skills, abilities, or achievements.

It is also interesting to hear about linguistic studies that try to date peoples and places between 15,000 and 10,000 B.C. One must wonder what these archaeologists and anthropologists, along with their linguists, use to determine such things. As everyone knows, the only languages of antiquity that have survived to modern man’s knowledge, is that of Central and South America. There is no language remnants, linguistics, etc., of anything within the area of today’s United States or Canada to suggest a written language pre-dating the period of time of the Maya, Aztecs and pre-Inca.

There are even some well-known linguists, of course, that claim the Mayan symbols are not really a language at all. However, the point is, there is nothing northward of Central America showing any movement southward. Yet, despite this, there are those professionals who stick stubbornly to the belief that man settled the Western Hemisphere by coming across a so-called land bridge (see below) between Siberia and Alaska (covered in earlier posts on this subject).

However, we have numerous scientists who have studied the development in the south, beginning in South America, and man’s movement into Central America and finally into North America—as the Book of Mormon suggests.

Thus it cannot be considered an anachronism to have man in the Western Hemisphere prior to some belief that he came across Beringia. In fact, the new results of geologic studies, which appeared in the October issue of the journal “Geology,” shows a growing body of research that challenges the idea that the only route to the Americas was a single land bridge from Asia. According to a new study, this long-gone land bridge between Asia and Alaska flooded about 12,000 years ago, which is about a thousand years earlier than previously believed. "I think we're on the verge of rewriting the whole history of the region," said study leader Lloyd Keigwin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The new evidence from the Arctic also suggests that the thousand-mile-wide bridge was available for a much shorter time than previously believed.

The point of all these items and the last several posts, is to show that sooner or later, science will come around to understanding what they have not known before—and as they do, the Book of Mormon is again and again shown to be accurate despite all the critical rhetoric to the opposite.