So-Called Book of Mormon Anachronisms: Horses

Continuing with the so-called anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, critics write:

“Horses are mentioned eleven times in the Book of Mormon in the context of its New World setting. There is no evidence that horses existed on the American continent during the 2500-3000 year history of the Book of Mormon (2500 BC - 400 AD) The only evidence of horses on the American continent dates to pre-historic times, (between 12,500 and 10,000 BC.) It is widely accepted that horses were extinct in the Western Hemisphere over 10,000 years ago and did not reappear there until the Spaniards brought them from Europe. Horses were re-introduced to the Americas (Caribbean) by Christopher Columbus in 1493, and to the American continent by Cortes in 1519.”

Once again, we are dealing with sectarian history. This history, it might be recalled is based on an earth that is 4.55 billion years old, and in there having been no Flood, and that the development of man started with a single-cell ameba and grew through cave man to modern man. In natural science, abiogenesis is the study of how life arose from inorganic matter through natural processes and the method by which life on Earth arose. If a person wants to believe in such matters, then the entire basis of the Book of Mormon, and all religion is both unnecessary and irrelevant. Through this type of science, man has existed for millions of years—in fact, the beginning is continually being pushed back with “new finds” that are measured by carbon-14 dating and other methods.

Just recenty, “In the year 2002, the history of early man was pushed back another two million years, when a discovery of a skull fossil was made in Chad, central Africa. It represents a new species to science, called Sahelanthropus, but the individual is known as Toumai. It is between six and seven million years old.” Before this discovery, science claimed that in the Pliocene geological period, at the end of the era called the Tertiary by geologists, an early form of proto-man called Australopithecus anamensis evolved in Africa.

Since science makes such unadulterated claims that can not be proven except by methods that, themselves, are totally inaccurate (see the book “Scientific Fallacies and Other Myths), one cannot hope to find accuracy in such statements as: “The only evidence of horses on the American continent dates to pre-historic times, (between 12,500 and 10,000 BC.)” and “It is widely accepted that horses were extinct in the Western Hemisphere over 10,000 years ago and did not reappear there until the Spaniards brought them from Europe.”

What makes this idea so sad, is that none of this can be proven one way or another. One either believes in evolution and the insurmountable time frames involved that can neither be show to be accurate or, in most cases, not even believable. Or one chooses to believe in a world organized by God somewhere around 13,000 years ago according to Moses’ writings in Genesis and the Book of Moses of the Pearl of Great Price.

Critics obviously believe in the former. They sight “scientific facts” that are merely hypothesis (educated guesses), and base their entire judgment on the frailties of man rather than on the revealed world of God.

The real question Latter-day Saints should be asking these critics, is what proof do they have that “There is no evidence that horses existed on the American continent during the 2500-3000 year history of the Book of Mormon (2500 BC - 400 AD)”? After all, there is no question that horse skulls, bones, and even complete skeletons, have been found in the Western Hemisphere that date into prehistoric times. The fact that none were found by the first Spaniards to arrive is not particularly significant when we recognize the history of these lands and the unmitigated stupidity of these early Spaniards who destroyed as much written material as they found, along with such magnificent buildings, structures, pillars and artifacts as they could dismantle.

It should be apparent to anyone who understands the history of the Western Hemisphere that much of what was magnificent here died out with the annihilation of the Nephites around 400 A.D. Unlike the Eastern Hemisphere, which had a continuing growth from early man forward, the Western Hemisphere, which once had a society and culture rivaling that of anywhere in the world, fell into oblivion when the Nephites were destroyed.

It was replaced by a culture, the Lamanite, which had accomplished nothing, built nothing, achieved nothing for thousands of years. They were as much in the state as Enos described them up until somewhere around the 13th and 14th centuries when they began to materialize into larger, organized cultures, culminating in the Inca in South America, the Aztec in Mexico, and the Maya in Central America when the Spaniards arrived. In fact, in much of the Western Hemisphere, especially North America, the Lamanite descendants had never progressed. They were still wearing loin cloths and hunting in the wilderness for their food (Enos 1:20).

(See the next post, “So-Called Book of Mormon Anachronisms: Horses – Part II,” for where the horses were in the Western Hemisphere)