Beasts in the Forest – Part V

Continuing from the previous post regarding the animals the Nephites found when they landed in the Land of Promise, and called: “cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat (1 Nephi 18:25), but archaeology claims have not been found in the Americas. 
    As pointed out in the previous post, there is a mind-set among professionals as to what can and what cannot exist in certain time frames of the past, particularly within the Americas since there is no recorded history of continuity like there is in Europe.
    This is not just limited to the knowledge found in archaeology, anthropology, geology, etc., but also within a knowledge of written history that is not accepted by science, such as the Book of Mormon. That is, a lack of knowledge or belief in the Nephite record helps influence archaeologists to evaluate their findings and point their results away from any interpretation regarding a Near East existence in the Western Hemisphere. In fact, even when faced with actual evidence they cannot bring themselves to even think along such lines, let alone change their minds. Obviously, this kind of attitude influences the interpretation of the artifacts found and tends to put them into another category making their true value lost to the people of the world. This disbelief is one of the attitudes that heavily influences archaeological work and helps construct a false record of the past.

 Some museum basements contain enormous stores of artifacts that will never see the light of day

    The mishandling, misinterpretation and mislabeling of the ancient artifacts and the manipulation of the historical record contribute to the loss of physical evidence and why so many items are hopelessly stored in the basement of museums, never to be seen by other researchers and archaeologists. Take, as an example, the knowledge of finding evidence of post extinction and pre-Columbian horses and elephants in North, Central and South America that lived at the same time as people. Since that does not fit into the geologic column and record, such findings have been ignored by the archaeological and anthropological world and little or no publication of them can be found except in rare instances.
    According to archaeology, 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) They claim that 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 among so-called professionals 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. According to mainstream archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, etc., horses were re-introduced to the Americas (Caribbean) by Christopher Columbus in 1493, and to the American continent by Cortes in 1519.”

This, of course, is sectarian history, and is associated with an evolutionary opinion that the earth is 4.55 billion years old, and that there was no Noah’s Flood. It is also part of the promoted philosophy that man started as 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.
    Now, 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. In fact, recently, “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.”
    Proior to this so-called 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 cannot 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.”
    To “prove” their point, critics sight “scientific facts” that are merely hypothesis (educated guesses), and base their entire judgment on the frailties of man rather than on the revealed word of God. In regard to the Book of Mormon and the existence of horses, or other listed animals, the 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)”? Of course, they will make claim that the Spaniards did not find any when they arrived. Yet, it should be understood that the Spaniards only saw a very small area of the Western Continent when they arrived and for many years thereafter, and so intent on finding gold, that few, if any had an interest in anything else.

After all, there is no question that horse skulls, bones, and even complete skeletons, have been found in the Western Hemisphere that date between the so-called extinction period (10,000 B.C.) and the arrival of the Europeans. 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 ignorance 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 because they thought it works of the Devil.
    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, and was replaced by a culture, the Lamanite, which had accomplished nothing, built nothing, or 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), when the Europeans arrived.
    Of course, the time frame operated by geologic science today, called in part the geologic column, is a totally anti-God concept starting with the Big Bang Theory and running to the extent that this earth is 4.55 billion years old. According to this “science,” 99.99% of this Earth time and the events that have happened on the Earth were before man. Stated differently, under this premise man has occupied the earth for only .001% of the time of its existence (that is, one-tenth of one percent). This hardly sounds like the purpose of this earth—for man to occupy such a very tiny, microscopic moment of it, when it was created for man. When the gods were discussing a plan for mankind to populate this earth, “And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: "We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of thewe materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell" (Abraham 3:24).

 It seems illogical that the earth was created and awaited man for 4.55 billions years when it is clear that the purpose of this earth was for mankind to dwell upon it. And for what purpose was man to dwell upon this earth? “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever (Abraham 3:25-26).
    Unfortunately, not understanding this different time frame and, therefore, thinking the scientists are correct in saying horses were extinct on the Western Hemisphere before the Western Hemisphere even existed, LDS apologists claim that the word "horse" in the Book of Mormon refers to a tapir or sloth in order to explain the anachronism. However, the references critics point out in the Book of Mormon regarding the word “horse,” begins with Nephi telling us what he found in the Land of Promise after landing, and that “there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals” (1 Nephi 18:25). Not only does this tell us that Lehi did not bring these animals with him, but that they were in the Land of Promise before he arrived. This leads to an understanding of the “flocks” and “herds” the Jaredites brought (Ether 6:4), and that during the poisonous serpent event, many of their animals fled into the Land Southward, eventually making their way toward the south, and the location of Lehi’s landing site, as well as that of the Mulekites later.

Thus, the horse was known to the Jaredites in 2100 B.C., obviously downloaded from the Ark a couple of hundred years earlier into the Mesopotamia area, and they definitely had horses, asses, elephants, cureloms and cumoms, which are all beasts of burden (Ether 9:19). While we do not know if the Jaredites ever rode the horse as a means of transportation, horses were had among the Nephites as early as their time of landing (1 Nephi 18:25), they also had expanded by Enos time: “the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses“ (Enos 1:21).
(See the next post, “Beasts in the Forest – Part VI,” for more on the reasons why no horse remains or remains of other domestic animals have been found in South America or in the Americas.)