Continuing
from the previous post regarding the importance that the lack of metallurgy in
Mesoamerica is when considering where the Land of Promise truly was located.
Also continuing with the comments of John L. Sorenson, the so-called guru of
Book of Mormon Land of Promise geography, that are meant to lessen and even
question the meaning of the use of “metal” terminology in the scriptural
record. It is important to understand that simple comments, like Nephi making
swords like that of Laban, often required effort, learning, and achievement. In
reading the scriptural record, we often glaze over these extreme events and
accomplishments of both Nephi, and these early Nephites in all they
accomplished without really considering what was involved.
As
an example, it should also be kept in mind that sword making is a fine art. In
some cultures, the sword maker’s work was as highly sought after as was Antonio
Stradivari in 17th and 18th century Italy for his
violins, violas, cello, and string-making abilities. What Nephi knew about
swords is neither mentioned nor implied, however, since weapons are the
mainstay of the young in any culture, it can probably be assumed Nephi would
have known something about the properties of swords in his youth and early
metallurgical days.
As
an example, before steel was known, swords were made primarily out of bronze, a
combination of copper and tin, with the higher amount of tin (about 20%) made
the sword much stronger, though brittle and subject to breaking, while the
lesser amount of tin (about 10%) made the sword less likely to break, but
softer and more likely to bend in battle--thus early swords were often wide to keep them from bending.
Swordsmiths in China favored the
higher amount of tin with their copper, and the swordsmiths in Europe and Asia
preferred lesser amounts of tin in their mixture—thus, in the early eras,
Chinese swords were narrower, while the European and Asian swords were wider,
even to using the Roman-style “leafblade” sword to keep them from bending.
Bronze also meant the swords could be longer than copper swords, allowing a
length of 20 to 35-inches, instead of the “short sword” known in the copper
era. By the time of Lehi, swords had achieved lengths of two to four feet in
length during the so-called Iron Age.
Using
iron in the making of sword blades required a high melting point, which
meant the smelting process limited primitive swordsmiths to the production of a
porous mass of iron called a bloom, which was subsequently hammered out over
the course of numerous heating and cooling cycles to produce the desired blade.
In fact, though iron blades were not much better initially than bronze ones,
iron ore was readily accessible in just about every region of the ancient
world, and while the copper required in the production of bronze was also
abundant, the simplicity in producing workable iron and the relative rarity of
tin meant that iron swords could be produced on a much larger scale, and could
therefore equip more impressive armies.
Now
we don’t know if Nephi ever made an iron blade, or worked with iron, bronze, or
even copper, though living on a farm all his life and requiring knowledge of
fixing and making farm equipment, very possibly involved both Lehi and his sons
in the process. Yet, we see that Nephi was an adept student at both learning
and making things with his hands. And the process of creating steel was
developed quite by accident in the beginning anyway, for it was entirely
unknown what gave steel its valuable properties, and for centuries the techniques
for making high quality steel were closely held, almost alchemical, secrets.
Clearly, iron was its major component, but a myriad of other minor additions
were found empirically, such as adding nickel, vanadium, chromium and
manganese, with even more mysterious treatments evolved for cooling the red hot
object to room temperature.
Much in the way that tin mixed with
copper produces a superior alloy in the form of bronze, adding carbon to iron
in the proper quantities and with the correct technique gives rise to the
vastly superior alloy of steel, though limiting dissolved gasses such as
nitrogen and oxygen, was an issue to be solved.
One of the difficulties of adding
carbon to iron through the techniques of quenching and carbonizing, which first
is a process of hot iron is plunged into cold water, and the second is in
taking heated iron and hammering it and folding it so carbon molecules from the
charcoal was beaten into the iron, which is a decidedly difficult process to control.
This led early swordsmiths working with iron to produce swords of vastly
different qualities from one day to the next, and would have been a perfect
classroom for Nephi, who may well have experimented in metallurgy on his
father’s farm while making tools, repairing cinches, buckles, nails, clench bolts,
etc.
This, of course, is speculation,
but the point is that metal work on ancient farms was both important and indispensable,
and most farmers and farm hands learned rudimentary metal working. And like any
youth, Nephi probably experimented with making himself a knife or two.
This
all leads to Nephi’s record in which he indicated his being impressed with Laban’s
sword—he not only identified it as having pure gold, but fine, precious steel.
How would he have known this had he not had some considerable experience
working with metals?
As we pointed out earlier, Nephi
would likely have known something about metallurgy working on his father’s farm
and the likelihood of any young man from a farm around ancient Jerusalem in
Nephi’s time knowing of such things. Yet, despite this, William J. Hamblin, Professor of History at BYU, in his
article suggests quite the opposite. One can only wonder why.
He begins by trying to lessen the
accuracy of the words used and our understanding of them. As an example, he
tries to make the point that there are linguistic layers involved in the Book
of Mormon and that has an effect on the meaning of the word “steel” used.
According to Hamblin, an historical
Book of Mormon would have at least seven different linguistic layers:
1. Early nineteenth century American
English;
2. Jacobean English of the KJV
Bible;
3. Fourth century A.D. language of
Moroni (Mormon 9.33-34);
4. Mesoamerican language(s);
5. Hebrew of the sixth century B.C.;
6. Egyptian of the sixth century
B.C.;
7. Jaredite language.
First
of all, Hamblin meant Mormon 9:32-33) and Moroni’s comments are simply this: “And now, behold, we have written this record according to our
knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian,
being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if
our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but
the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in
Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record” (Mormon 9:32-33), which briefly
means that the writers of the Book of Mormon spoke and wrote Hebrew, but used
Reformed Egyptian to write on the Plates (which Joseph Smith translated). Since
they were using a second language to write on the record, he cautioned that
there might be some linguistic mistakes. However, though linguists love to
point this out, they never add the following statement of Moroni when he
qualifies any mistakes the writer has made with: “But
the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other
people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our
language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof”
(Mormon 9:34 ).
That “means” of which Moroni spoke
was Joseph Smith as translator, and the Holy Spirit as the guide to make sure
the translation was correct. Therefore, much of the linguists’ beliefs in
errors and complicated or complex meanings was handled or clarified by the
Spirit in the process of the translation. To understand this “means,” Martin Harris provided a description of the manner
of translating while he was transcribing the Prophet’s translation:
“By aid of the
Seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by
Martin, and when finished he would say ‘written;’ and if correctly written, the
sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written
correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it
was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used’.” (A Comprehensive History of the Church, Vol.
1, p. 129, emphasis added).
To one and all, this should show
that there would have been no linguistic errors, problems, or complexities to
the translation of the scriptural record of the Book of Mormon other than the
form of English then known and used by the Prophet and the amanuensis (with an
understanding that Joseph’s English in this translation was that of the King
James Bible English); however, every theorist who has to justify his beliefs
and models when they do not agree with what is clearly written in the
scriptural record must provide some explanation to support their difference
from Mormon’s descriptions.
(See
the next post, “Metallurgy Did Not Exist in Mesoamerica
Prior to 600 A.D. – Part VIII,“ to
see how far theorists go to try and bend the facts presented in the scriptural
record to maintain their erroneous beliefs, paradigms and models)
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Del,
ReplyDeleteStill haven't heard back on those sources/maps of the Quechua "Land of Many Waters." Really interested in seeing the old maps or sources of that claim.
Thanks!
WonderBoy. Just got back from a ten-day hiatus, will answer shortly.
ReplyDeleteRight on
ReplyDelete