A reader sent me a copy of Joseph Warren
Grammer’s Book of Mormon Evicdences Revisited (2009), containing 14
chapters and 3 appendices.
First of all, let me state that I have no
disagreement with part of Grammer’s preface statement “For those who seriously
believe that there is no evidence in support of the Book of Mormon” his work is
“a documented work, utilizing the research of professionals in several fields,
setting forth various overwhelming scientific evidence in support of the Book
of Mormon being as it claims, that of holy scripture from God.” On this issue,
we agree—there is much evidence within the pages of the Book of Mormon to prove
its authenticity many times over. But this is about the only issue in his work
where agreement can be reached based on the very scriptural record he intends
to validate with his “overwhelming evidence.”
In the preface, Grammer goes on to state: “Not
to be read by those who have trouble accepting overwhelming evidence of
scientific discovery” as though his points are beyond understanding or so
accurate that they cannot be denied. So let’s take a look at his so-called
evidence:
First of all, he takes the Adena
and Hopewell cultures of the northeastern United States and claims they are
none other than the Jaredite and Nephite cultures. “There are,” he claims, “a
few very interesting parallels between them” and goes on to present what he
believes are seven matching points. Following are his points with our responses:
Point One: Grammer: “The Jaredites came to this North American
continent during the time of the tower of Babel, about 2243-2004 B.C., that is
if we calculate by using the genealogies as found in the Bible.”
The Jaredites left Mesopotamia and the area
of the Tower of Babel at about the time the languages were confounded during
the life of Nimrod, Noah’s great grandson
Response: First, to
be accurate, the Jaredites left Mesopotamia at the time of the tower of Babel.
Speaking only in the broadest sense would we include reaching their final
destination at the time of the Tower of Babel since by then, the Lord had
confounded the people’s languages and scattered them abroad from Babel over the
face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:7-8).
Second, The Jaredites, like the
Nephites and Mulekites (People of Zarahemla) came to the Western Hemisphere.
We have no reason to
believe that this was to North America. Such a comment is neither scientific
nor accurate to the scriptural record—which does not specifically tell us where
in the Western Hemisphere either of these three groups landed. Third, the only
clue as to where they landed was the fact that the “Lord God caused that there
should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised
land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.” This
is quite similar to Nephi’s statement where he twice tells us that his ship was
“driven forth before the winds” to the promised land.
While there is no
agreement between scholars as to where the Jaredites set off in their barges,
most scholars agree with the site where Nephi left along the southern coast of
the Arabian Peninsula. Thus, we can track Nephi’s voyage by the winds and ocean
currents from that point and see where he would have landed (see the book Lehi
Never Saw Mesoamerica). There is also good reason to believe that the Jaredites
were led to this same point, and thus we can also track their path across the
sea and to their landing point (see the book Who Really Settled Mesoamerica).
Point One (cont):
Grammer: “Now we don’t know exactly how
much time elapsed between the time that Jared and his people left Babylon and
when they embarked for their new world; it could have been considerable.”
Response: Seven
specific events are described in the record. 1] The Lord directed the Jaredites
to meet him in the Valley of Nimrod, to which they then traveled after
gathering all their flocks, (Ether 2:4) 2] The Lord led them in the wilderness
and the Lord went before them and talked to them and gave directions whither
they should travel (Ether 2:2), 3] They built barges and crossed many waters,
being directed continually by the hand of the Lord (Ether 2:6), 4] Not allowing
them to stop by a large Sea in the wilderness, they traveled to “that great sea
that divideth the lands” (Ether 2: 7, 13), 5] they spent four years living in
tents along this seashore they called Moriancumer (Ether 2:13), 6] the Lord
commanded them to build airtight barges in order to cross the great sea (Ether
2:16-18), and 7] they set out in their barges and crossed the great sea (Ether
6:4) to finally land 344 days later in the promised land (Ether 6:12).
How long all these seven
events took is unknown, though we know the length of two of them; however, we
can probably make a close assessment by attaching one to two years to steps
1-4, we know there were 4 years for step 5, assuming another year to build the barges,
step 6, and we know there was almost another year in crossing the sea, step 7,
which gives us a total of about seven to eight years. Nephi, on the other hand,
tells us it took them 8 years in the wilderness before reaching Bountiful, and
figuring one to two years building his ship, probably about ten years between
leaving Jerusalem to reaching the Land of Promise. Thus, we might be able to
suggest that the Jaredites took a similar 8 to 10 years before landing in the
Land Northward of the Land of Promise.
Point One (cont): Grammer:
“So once they arrived in America, and
considering that the people of Jared were most likely a small group, it would
have taken them many years to develop into a civilization large enough to be
considered a culture of their own.”
Response: Again, by
the term “arrived in America” is meant North America, that is merely an
assumption. On the other hand, both North and South America were once referred
to as a single continent, “the American Continent,” then this term could be
used, though Western Hemisphere is more accurately applied here since no
specific reference can be drawn from it.
Second, as to the
population, “the friends of Jared and his brother were in number about twenty
and two souls” (Ether 6:16), which based upon the ancients’ tendency to count
men and not women, it might be accurately assumed that there were twenty-two
couples beside Jared and his brother and their wives, for a grand total of 48
adults.
In addition, the
numbers of children among Jaredites, throughout their history was very high, and
they lived old ages (Ether 9:24-25), and had children when they were old (Ether
7:3,7,26;9:14,10:4,14,16;11:4). Thus we see that Jared had twelve sons and
daughters while his brother had twenty-two, making 34 children among the two.
Using that number to extrapolate an overall figure, each family could have had
17 children, or 22x17=374 children in the first generation, which was about the
time they landed, since “they also begat sons and daughters before they came to
the promised land, and therefor they began to be many" (Ether 6:16). Taking this
figure, we can see that there would have been 3,179 in the second generation, 27,021
in the third generation, with 229,678 in the fourth generation.
Thus we can see that
within four generations, less than 200 years of landing, the Jaredite nation
could have numbered well over 200,000 people, which is well beyond the
anthropological assignment of a “culture.”
(See the next post,
“Fallacy of Seven Matching Points-Part II,” of Joseph Warren Grammer’s work Book of Mormon
Evicdences Revisited (2009), containing 14 chapters and 3 appendices, for the
final part of his first point and his second so-called “matching” point)
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