Using strictly the scriptures, I
would like to ask the following questions of those many Theorists who claim their pet theories about the
location of the Land of Promise are consistent with the scriptural record.
This ninth question is directed
at Joe V. Anderson, a Mesoamerican advocate for the Land of Promise, in his
writing on the Book of Mormon
Archaeological Forum website, entitled “Columbus in the Promised Land,” in
which he makes the claim that his eight “mandatory criteria for location Book
of Mormon lands” must exist, and concludes that “Any proposed Book of Mormon
geography that does not meet all of the above criteria cannot be the land of
the Book of Mormon.”
So the question to be asked is:
9. “What makes you think that the written language now called the Maya glyphs,
which is found in Guatemala, etc., has anything to do with either of the
written languages used by the Nephites, i.e., Hebrew or Reformed Eqyptian?”
First, we have sufficient copies
of both the Reformed Egyptian translated by Joseph Smith and also knowledge of
ancient Hebrew to show that the Maya language is neither related, resembles, or
could possibly have descended from either.
Top: Reformed Egyptian, as written by Joseph Smith, given to Martin
Harris who was instructed “to take them to some of the most learned men of this
generation and ask them for the translation thereof”; Center: A portion of the
Great Isaiah Scroll from the Dead Sea Caves; Bottom: Maya Glyphs. It simply is
not rationale to say that the latter glyphs grew out of either Reformed
Egyptian or Hebrew, thus rendering the Maya written language inconsequential to
a discussion about the Book of Mormon
Second, the Lord, in his wisdom
and foreknowledge, told Mormon, “having been
commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been
handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the
Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would
destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and
hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by
the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son
Moroni” (Mormon 6:6, emphasis mine). Understanding this, Moroni also buried his
record (Mormon 8:4). Obviously, any written record found would have been destroyed by
the conquering Lamanites who hated all things Nephite (Moroni 1:2).
Third,
wickedness prevailed in the last days in the Land of Promise (Mormon 1:13), there
were sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics; and the power of the evil one was
wrought upon all the face of the land (Mormon 1:19), where the Lamanites
sacrificed Nephite women and children to their dumb idols (Mormon 4:14-15, 21),
and not only were the Lamanites at war with the Nephites for almost the entire
4th century A.D., but after annihilating the Nephites, “the
Lamanites were at war one with another; and the whole face of this land is one
continual round of murder and bloodshed; and no one knoweth the end of the war”
(Mormon 8:8).
Fourth,
these wars between the Lamanites continued through the entire period of
Moroni’s writings, some 40 years at least, “with no end in sight.” This means
that the Lamanites were embroiled in a lengthy war that lasted more than one
hundred years, from 327 A.D. through to 421 A.D., and evidently increasing in
fierceness (Moroni 1:2) far beyond that point. It is hard to imagine that 1)
anything Nephite would have survived, and 2) the Lamanites would have had any
interest, let alone time, to be involved in the finer cultures of life, such as
writing, keeping records, drawing pictures, glyphs, etc.
Once again, do you see any semblance of any kind between (left)
Reformed Egyptian, or (center) Ancient Hebrew, with (right) Maya glyphs?
It should also be kept in mind that each of these languages are read in
a different direction. Reformed Egyptian from left to right, Ancient Hebrew
from right to left, and Maya Glyphs read two columns at a time, top to bottom. It is hard to see how the latter
language could have evolved from either of the first two
Fifth, in all reality, there is
no way of knowing, outside the Book of Mormon itself, whether or not ancient
Western Hemisphere societies actually had written languages. No hard evidence
is available (surviving books, writings, etc.,) that can accurately be dated to
the Nephrite period (other than some glyphs carved in stone and their dating is often in question).
The oldest discovered glyphs so
far in Guatemala, a line of ten very crude glyphs on a wall, date to a building
constructed in 100 B.C., though the writing is claimed to be about 200 B.C.,
and consists of abstract shapes with their meaning obscure. It is also claimed
that earlier writing dates to about 400 to 300 B.C. in Oaxaca—all inscriptions
on murals in buildings.
However, the earliest possible codex (book) would have
been developed no earlier than about 600 A.D., some 200 years after the
Nephites were destroyed, since according to Burns (2004) it is understood that
the Maya developed their huun-paper (from their bark-cloth tunics) around the 5th
century A.D. However, according to Thomas Tobin, “researchers today must rely
on what are often no better than educated guesses in order to reconstruct the
practices of the ancient Maya scribes.” In fact, the Dresden Codex, one of only
four surviving Mayan codices is believed to have been written just before the
Spanish arrived in the 16th century, and is believed to be a copy of
the original, written 300 to 400 years earlier, and believed to be the oldest
book written in the Americas—making it written about 800 to 850 A.D. according
to Anthony F. Anzovin, Empires of Time
(2000). This, of course, is 450 years after the last Nephite, and some 10
generations after the last Lamanites of the Book of Mormon period.
It might also be of interest to
know that the ten main Aztec Codices were all written in the mid 16th
century or later, making them post date the Spanish arrival. The most famous,
that of Ixlilxochitl, was written in the early 17th century, nearly
100 years after the Conquest.
So the question is asked again: “What makes you think that the written
language now called the Maya glyphs, which is found in Guatemala, etc., has
anything to do with either of the written languages used by the Nephites, i.e.,
Hebrew or Reformed Egyptian?"
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