Were the Olmecs Jaredites?—Part III

Continuing with the last post and John L. Sorenson’s unrealistic and non-scriptural claim that the Olmecs were the Jaredites, and that the Jaredites survived their war of annihilation in such numbers as to mix with “the Mulek group of voyagers from the Mediterranean. The scientific information is unmistakable; there was definite continuity of population from earlier times into the days of the Nephites. The Book of Mormon account neither contradicts nor confirms it, but neither does such continuity pose any particular problems for the scripture, as I read it.”

Let’s take his points one by one and see whether they agree or disagree with the scriptural record.

1. “Some Jaredites survived their final wars.” Ether tells us “that the people began to flock together in armies, throughout all the face of the land” (Ether 14:19), and that the war moved so swiftly, that “there was none left to bury the dead, but they did march forth from the shedding of blood to the shedding of blood, leaving the bodies of both men, women, and children strewed upon the face of the land, to become a prey to the worms of the flesh” (Ether 14:22).

To make a point of who was involved, Ether continued with: “And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether” (Ether 15:12). In doing so, “They were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children -- both men women and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war -- they did march forth one against another to battle” (Ether 15:14-15). And in all of this, Coriantumr was the last man standing (Ether 15:30-32). There were no Jaredites survivors—Moroni, who translated Ether’s account, did so around 400 A.D., when he was the last Nephite alive. He certainly gave no indication that any Jaredites survived. He even added a footnote that the Lamanites had tracked down all the escaping Nephites from their last battled and killed them (Mormon 8:2). If there were Jaredite survivors, one would think that Moroni might have footnoted Ether’s account as well. But he did not, and no mention of surviving Jaredites is found anywhere in all the Nephite records.

2. “The scientific information is unmistakable.” These events took place around 600 B.C. There is no writing, histories, carvings, stelaes, inscriptions, or records of any kind regarding this period in the Western Hemisphere other than the Book of Mormon. Any scientific evidence is based solely on speculation regarding what little has been found dating to this period. Naturally, one could assume this and that, one could speculate on what certain things meant, and one could make guesses (hypotheses), but when you strip all of it from archaeological and anthropological jargon, it simply boils down to people’s opinions based upon nothing but guesswork. Scientific information of a time period where there is no records of any kind is only speculation and “best guess” scenarios. And when it counters the specific word of God, it isn’t even a “best guess.”

3. “There was definite continuity of population from earlier times into the days of the Nephites.” First of all, it cannot be shown conclusively that the Nephites were ever in Mesoamerica in the time frame under discussion. There is so much evidence against such an idea, that it is not even worth considering (see the book “Lehi Never Saw Mesoamerica”); however, even if we want to dabble in speculation about the Lehi Colony landing in Guatemala, the point is that population information is based solely on pottery shards, arrow points, settlement debris, and diffusion principles. And there are enough disagreement on what any of it means among archaeologists, it again is not worth mentioning. But even persisting with the idea, we can easily point out that such an idea of Jaredites mingling with the Nephites is so far outside the scriptural record that it is not even possible without claiming the Nephite prophets, abridgers, and translators all were trying to cover up the existence of other peoples in the Land of Promise at the same time as Lehi’s landing, and their so-called contribution to the Nephite nation.

(See the next post, “Were the Olmecs Jaredites—Part IV,” for the final installment on the Mesoamericanists’ view of surviving Jaredites and their mingling with the Nephites)