Talk:Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon

For previous discussions on this topic, see: Talk:Book of Mormon anachronisms

NPOV

This article is not presented neutrally - it does not include all points of view. In several instances it has original research with quotes to original sources and interpretations of the meaning rather than a summary of scholars words.

The latest changes have made the POV issues worse. --Trödel 14:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Rather than a general assertion, it is better to take issues one at a time and discuss here. But there will always be POV problems on Book of Mormon articles, since virtually all editors come here with a POV on the issue. --Taivo (talk) 14:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I have no pov on the Book of Mormon, but the article is certainly heavily concerned to prove that all criticisms are unfounded. Without exception, these counter-arguments have no basis, and it's pointless including them - the article needs to concentrate on pointing out the anachronisms and mistakes. PiCo (talk) 21:20, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

NPOV means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. There is a large amount of scholarly work dedicated to rebutting perceived anachronisms and mistakes in the Book of Mormon, and it's bad form to hack sourced material out of an article just because you don't agree with it. -- Adjwilley (talk) 22:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

But the sources being used are NOT reliable - the arguments would disgrace a child. I think this article needs to be taken to arbitration, as the quality is so low that it brings Wikipedia into disrepute. (In fact it makes it a laughingstock - you can imagine the article some journalist could write about Wikipedia as a scholarly source, based on this.) I'll see what can be done. PiCo (talk) 22:56, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

PiCo, Adjwilley is right. All POVs must be presented fairly. You definitely have a POV--that all sources seeking to deal with the anachronisms are unreliable. That is your POV and you need to keep it in check. --Taivo (talk) 02:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Possibly your pov is that the Book of Mormon has no anachronisms :). The fact remains, the arguments advanced against the anachronisms are childish and do not come from reliable sources. PiCo (talk) 03:06, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted PiCo's "edits" again after he deleted half the article. The edit warring should stop now. PiCo has been WP:Bold, but now it is time to discuss on the talk page specifically why he thinks apologist sources are unreliable. -- Adjwilley (talk) 05:08, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

PiCo, if you actually took two seconds to look at my edits on this and other BOM articles, you'd see that I am definitely not on the pro-side, but your edits are one-sided and biased, pushing your single POV to the exclusion of any others. Wikipedia must fairly represent all sides of every issue and not just follow your personal judgment on what is and is not "reliable" or what is and is not "the truth". --Taivo (talk) 05:25, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a fairly common misconception that Wikipedia must represent "all sides of every issue" - but in fact this isn't so. What Wikipedia represents is major points of view from reliable sources. Where there is an important minority view we show that too. But all sides? No. In this case, the views that, for example, there were horses in the Americas before European settlement, or that Isaiah was written entirely by the 7th century prophet, or that baptism was practiced in Iron Age Judah, are simply not reputable. Nobody believes these things, or at least nobody whose opinion is an informed one. Therefore we don't include them in this article, which is about the errors in the Book of Mormon. Anyway, as I mentioned above, I'm trying to get some action from administrators. PiCo (talk) 06:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Calling the beliefs of several million people a "fringe theory" is rather bold, not to mention unfair, insensitive, and a violation of Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policies. Good luck with that. That said, however, I would support the deletion of all these articles whose only purpose is to 1) denigrate the Book of Mormon (this article) or 2) uphold it as science (Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, Genetics and the Book of Mormon, Archeology and the Book of Mormon, Historical Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, etc.). The problem with these articles isn't that they lack reliable sources, but that their fundamental purpose isn't enlightenment, but either proselytizing or anti-proselytizing. THAT is the true embarrassment to Wikipedia. But, as you will yourself find out, when you step in the pile of doodoo called "religion", all your neat and tidy little rules of sourcing will fly out the window because these apologists have been 1) published in a university or other reliable press, and 2) had their work peer-reviewed. Of course, that university is Brigham Young University and those reliable presses are in Utah, and peers means peers within the community of scientists who work at BYU, but Wikipedia doesn't distinguish between scholars at religious schools and scholars at secular schools. And, these scholars have perfectly reputable degrees from other universities. As I said earlier, my preference would be to delete every one of these articles since they are all fundamentally based on a proselytizing (or anti-proselytizing) effort, but I've tried before and those AfD nominations are overwhelmed by LDS editors who want to keep them--whether they benefit Wikipedia or not. --Taivo (talk) 11:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

A religious belief isn't any kind of theory, fringe of other. The fringe theory part is the bit that says there were horses in America before Columbus (and so on). Oddly enough I'd agree with you about deleting this article - I don't think it serves any useful purpose. PiCo (talk) 11:47, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Note that I expanded my previous comment. Oh, but PiCo, you have never dealt with the LDS belief system obviously, where the history, archeology, etc. are all bound up in the religious assertions and therefore the proselytizing and teaching mission surrounding the BOM. The reasoning goes: if the history and archeology of the BOM are false, then the book is false and Joseph Smith was not a prophet, and, therefore, the whole religion is false. --Taivo (talk) 11:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

But I will, indeed, support any AfDs you wish to put forward for the removing of these barely disguised missionary and anti-missionary tracts. --Taivo (talk) 12:04, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

@Taivo, I have zero interest in editing this article, but was thinking that perhaps a merge could be a possible solution. It looks like there's been a proposal to merge it up for a while anyway. -- Adjwilley (talk) 04:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

See Fringe Theories Noticeboard

Ok, done as I said above - I've taken my concerns to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Please note: I'm not saying that Mormonism is a fringe theory - it's a religion - nor that the Book of Mormon is a fringe theory - it's a religious text - but that it's fringe when religious apologists bring uninformed, non-expert arguments to bear on subjects in which they have no standing, such as whether American Indian languages are descended from Egyptian. Anyway, please go to that page and add anything you think is useful. PiCo (talk) 07:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The Fringe Theories Noticeboard discussion has been archived, but providing link for future reference. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 00:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh - I should add that I've reverted the article to immediately before I started editing, so as to provide a clean slate. PiCo (talk) 07:14, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

In this case, your so called "fringe theories" are relevant, since the LDS is a fringe religion and the BoM a fringe text! If you don't provide answers from both sides, you seriously run the risk of having a biased POV.--MacRùsgail (talk) 14:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Figs

Resolved

 – section was removed

The reference to figs as being an anachronism seems to be a stretch, for the following reasons:

1. The comment about figs is attributed to Jesus, who had lived his life in the Middle East where figs are native.
2. The Nephites are described as being descendants of people from the Middle East, so they could have known of the existence of a fruit called the fig even if they didn't have them.
3. The comment about figs is a metaphor anyway which should reasonably transparent even to those unfamiliar with the fruit. If someone said that one can't get good things from bad people just like one can't pick yuzus from a pitaya tree, that could be comprehensible even to those who might never seen or heard of a yuzu or a pitaya. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. It should be deeleted.Rockclaw1030 (talk) 19:09, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Remove Bees Section?

Resolved

 – section was removed

Although the mention of bees in the Book of Mormon is still occasionally presented as an anachronism, I think that this section should be removed. The honey bee is only mentioned in Ether, which takes place in the Old World, where bees are known to have existed long before the Book of Mormon. It really isn't an anachronism at all.Gypsy Danger Dynamite (talk) 06:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, as I read the current text it is not even clear what the anachronism is supposed to be - possibly an implication that surviving Apis sp. should have been found in the Americas? Pastychomper (talk) 14:03, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Jeff Lindsay

See WP:RSN#Jeff Lindsay (engineer) jefflindsay.com. Dougweller (talk) 17:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Dates in cn tags

If you're going to get your tighty whities in a knot about old citation tags, then you need to be consistent and not just cut text that disagrees with your POV. --Taivo (talk) 17:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

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Original Research?

The article is tagged with an original research problem. Where is that original research? What specifically is being referenced that is considered original research? I have gone over every citation that I can, aside from purchasing books or checking them out from the library, and they all seem verifiable and trustworthy. atoponce (talk) 13:23, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Missing/broken citations

The section "Cattle and cows" states "However, no species of bison is known to have been domesticated." There is a Harvard citation of "Diamond 1999" with some page numbers, but I can't find the corresponding full citation. Can anyone find the book and provide title, publisher, and/or ISBN? Thanks. Pastychomper (talk) 08:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I've just noticed there are at least two other citations in a similar predicament on the page, and tagged all 3. FWIW I tried a bit of digging, picking "Coe 2002" at random: It was introduced (apparently in the same form) when the page was created, and there were quite a few Coes getting published in 2002. Pastychomper (talk) 09:27, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Just come across a possible candidate for "Sorenson 1985" in the "Historicity of the Book of Mormon" article. I can't yet find a copy of the book to see if it matches the citation on this article, but the ISBN is 0-87747-608-X. Pastychomper (talk) 08:53, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Silk

I've added some more details of American wild silks, which to my mind are clearly relevant given what is said about Sorenson's ideas. I've put them as a separate paragraph as they are not directly referenced by the Sorenson article and I don't want to stray into OR territory. I've also tried to clean up the section but there's more to be done. Given how strongly some people seem to feel about this article, I'd welcome others' (considered :) ) opinions on the relevance of what I've added. Thanks. Pastychomper (talk) 12:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of references to swords

Doug Weller, you indicated a revert in the swords section as "original research." Which portions of the post is considered original research, pretty much all of it is just straight from the Book of Mormon text? I will gladly remove portions that are original research Geneva11 (talk) 22:46, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Original research includes taking a primary text and applying an interpretation to it. Thus, if you apply your interpretation to a BOM text, that is original research. If you reference a scholar and a reliable source that makes that interpretation, then that is not original research. --Taivo (talk) 00:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

"The Book of Mormon makes numerous references to "swords" and their use in battle. What the swords are made of is mostly ambiguous except for one instance involving the Jaredites and one instance involving a people that were "remnants" of a destroyed people (presumably Jaredites). The first was an early battle involving Shule a few generations after the Jaredite arrival in the New World circa 2500 BC which used "steel" swords. The second involved an expedition of Limhites to the land northward which returned from an area of ruins (presumably Jaredite area, but the text doesn't say) with swords that were received from a "remnant of the people who have been destroyed" along with some sacred records and that "the blades thereof were cankered with rust," suggesting that these swords were also metal. Nephite swords were capable of being "stained" indicating a non-metallic material, and no reference in the Book of Mormon indicates that the Nephites or Lamanites utilized metal swords except for the sword of Laban brought from the Old World which was utilized as a type of royal effigy weapon."

I see no sources for the struck out material. You also shouldn't put steel and swords in quotation marks, it's confusing at the very least. Doug Weller talk 13:10, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

References

Mastodons in Florida

I'm not sure that 100 BCE date is solid. I see this Mormon source[1] says "near to" although of course it isn't an RS. I can't take a proper look at this for 2 days, but there's [2] which is an unsearchable pdf that I'll be able to convert to Word. Also a search[3] Doug Weller talk 18:18, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The Mormon source is, as you said, unreliable. The second source is from the Handbook of North American Indians (which I own) and the article in question (Southeast Animals from Volume 3) says unequivocally that the mastodon was extinct in the Americas by 8000 BCE. I'll also check out the results of the Google Search, but I would say with 99.99999999% confidence that the 100 BCE date for mastodon remains is utterly bogus. --Taivo (talk) 19:52, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

The sources that all these 100 BCE dates for C14 measurements for Florida mastodons date to the 1960s. We all (should) know that C14 accuracy was sometimes questionable because of contamination either after or during collection or during or after deposition. Any 2012 publication (the Mormon one) that relies on 50-year-old C14 dates from the dawn of C14 technology for a highly suspicious date is the very definition of reliable. I've found no indications in any of the recent scientific literature that even mentions these readings from the '60s. I am going to remove this comment from the article because it is based on unreliable sources. --Taivo (talk) 20:01, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Introduction to this topic

Rather than doing pros/cons of each "anachronism", this topic should be summarized with top-levels pros/cons.

The explanation of adieu is a basic rebuttal to many of the words.

Daniel H. Ludlow contends that it may have been the result of Joseph Smith choosing the best word available to convey the meaning of the original text. The word is found in the 1828 Webster's Dictionary so was considered an English word at the time of the Book of Mormon translation.

This argument posits that the Joseph Smith was limited by the language of his day. 600 BC the Bronze Age II was underway, and Nephi had a bow of steel. Laban had a sword of steel. We can't say "steel" means the Bessemer steel process. It does not, since that wasn't invented until the 1850s. What did "steel mean in 1828"? https://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/steel

Similarly, if a Nephi descendant translated a record of Ether and it says steel, does that mean the original record said steel? This logic obviously falls under the "apologists" side. If Joseph/scribe recognizes an Isaiah verse, would he not open his KJV and just write it down?

Another important logical flaw in this page is the "black swan" problem. Scientific falsification (popperism) is not being applied to this page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

The predation of mega-fauna theory is referenced in the topic, which has been widely challenged in archaelogical research. Man may have been in America for 200,000 or more years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_extinction_event#Arguments_against_the_second-order_predation_hypothesis

Finally, the amount of the earth that has been thoroughly reviewed archaelogically is miniscule. How many dig sites are there in the Sahara Desert? America? The book American Holocaust suggested that 30 million people were wiped out by the Columbus discovery and what followed (next 50 years). Other evidence, such as Before America suggests the number may be 100 million. The cities are lost and undiscovered in the rainforests of Brasil.

In summary, the logical arguments on this page are very flawed. I could easily see this page be reduced in size significantly. The "nature of the translation" and the "black swan" are generic rebuttals to the different anachronisms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.241.209 (talk) 06:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

"Adieu" section could be removed

I'm not sure what anachronism is suggested here. As the source given demonstrates, adieu was an english word (or at least a widely recognized loan word) at the time of translation. Whether the book was divinely inspired or Joseph Smith's original creation, it seems reasonable for him to translate (or write) a word common in his time and language. The only way I could see this being an anachronism is if the claim is made the original (untranslated) text contained the French term; I'm not aware of any significant group making this claim, and certainly not Smith himself. As such, I think this section doesn't contribute to the article and could be removed. Does anyone know a reason it should stay, or a way it contributes positively to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elliptical Reasoning (talk • contribs) 15:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree it is not anachronistic for the reason you've stated, but it does seem to be a popular inclusion in lists of Book of Mormon anachronisms. It might be worth leaving it in but rewriting the section. Something like "[source] considers the use of 'adieu' to be anachronistic, but [other source] points out that the word was in common use in 1820s USA, and Smith does not appear to have claimed that the same word was used in the original." Admittedly this might be drifting away from the article's purpose, since it isn't titled "Alleged Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon". 62.6.59.86 (talk) 13:50, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Since it's a widely-acknowledged loan word in 19th century English, my vote is that this doesn't really represent a bona fide anachronism. I'm going to be bold and remove it. I haven't been able to find any serious scholarly claims that it represents an anachronism from a quick Google search. As always, feel free to disagree/discuss/revert if you feel strongly that I'm wrong. Trevdna (talk) 22:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Reformed Egyptian

Form the article, "No reformed Egyptian manuscripts or plates have ever been excavated by archaeologists." That's very likely to be true, but the only way to be sure would be to compare every excavated text with a known example of reformed Egyptian, and there is an obvious problem there. Further down, the article discusses the lack of texts that resemble Egyptian or Hebrew, so I've changed that part of the Background section to match. 62.6.59.86 (talk) 14:20, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Apologism throughout

Every point raised by this article has a weak response from an apologist editor. Many of these are absolute nonsense, like dating Leviticus to 1445BC or imagining that the word "horse" refers to deer.

I suggest we move the apologism to a dedicated section (rather than interleaving it throughout), and remove the obviously stupid bits. 86.18.4.28 (talk) 17:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Given that the BoM is a religious work which at least some people in the world believe to be true, it's appropriate to include apologists' responses so people can understand current thought on the subject, including why the believers don't either reject or reinterpret the work based on the anachronisms presented. The page is not supposed to be a tract to persuade people to believe one way or the other (and wouldn't be very effective if it was).

I don't see the point in collecting all the apologist parts in one place, you'd just end up repeating most of the titles and making the article harder to read for anyone interested in both parts.

About Leviticus, the cite you deleted seems to be referring to the date the rules in the book were first written, not the date the book reached its present form. The WP page on Leviticus says "the Pentateuch received its final form during the Persian period (538–332 BC). Nevertheless, Leviticus had a long period of growth before reaching that form." In the absence of a decently-sourced date for the first ritual immersions in ancient Israel, someone's guess based on the Biblical timeline seems reasonable to include - though the wording could have been better.

I agree that the "horse=deer" argument is at best weak, but if it's cited and looks like a notable part of apologist thought it should probably stay.

Pastychomper (talk) 09:40, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

(I know this is an older discussion, but... ) I think I see a way we can improve this. I'm going to go through and create an "apologetic response" subsection on each of these where it's applicable.

If I goof it up too bad, feel free to revert me, you won't hurt my feelings, just trying to be bold. Trevdna (talk) 21:49, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

False balance in the article

I've just created a lot of subsections on the "apologist perspective." In so doing, I've realized this article may suffer from issues with false balance between the mainstream and the apologist perspectives. From WP:FALSEBALANCE:

While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity. ... Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context concerning established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.

That said: would it be appropriate to remove some or all of the apologetic responses throughout this article? It seems as though they are given equal - or in some cases, substantially more - weight than the mainstream, generally-accepted views of third-party scientists, archeologists, etc. etc. Trevdna (talk) 23:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

@Trevdna maybe ask at the Wikiproject? Doug Weller talk 13:23, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@Trevdna It seems to me you've largely fixed that problem by defining all counter-arguments as "apologetic perspectives", since readers will understand that apologists' views are not likely to be mainstream, and will therefore tend to give them less weight. For that reason, I am not sure that title is appropriate in all cases. For example, the "apologetic perspective" on baptism don't include any apologist sources, it's just a paragraph of (as far as I can see) well-sourced limitations on the claim of an anachronism, as one should hope to find in a scholarly article. Some of the others are, shall we say, less mainstream and should be presented as apologists' ideas if they're presented at all.

As for whether they're presented at all, I've given my view in the section above, and agree it might be worth inviting more perspectives from the project. Pastychomper (talk) 12:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair point.

Also feel free to edit the baptism thing if you disagree with how I did it. If it’s a good faith edit that makes the article better, I don’t get offended, promise ;) Trevdna (talk) 17:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Horses in pre-Columbian

Horses were present in pre-Columbian times. The horses section should be modified or deleted. See this BBC article. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230126-the-return-of-the-spirit-horse-to-canada Sakalava47 (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

It's nonsense, see Pseudoarchaeological claims of Horses in the Americas Doug Weller talk 20:13, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Doug, the article you cite doesn't address the BBC's main point and isn't as authoritative as the BBC. Sakalava47 (talk) 23:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

This is BBC Travel, not BBC News. The BBC is a vaste organisation that creates a wide selection of media, not all of which can be considered reliable in the same way. If this was science or news output it would be different, but a BBC travel article is not a reliable source for the genetic history of American horses. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:42, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, when I checked up on the claim of DNA testing, I didn't find a good source. That's an issue I will try to track down. Sakalava47 (talk) 23:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Sakalava47 The BBC story is in the travel section written by a travel writer, not authoritative at all for horses. And discusses the originator of the story that is dealt with in the article I linked. The horse society is dedicated to this claim. To its credit it does link to this article which is dubious about the claim.[https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lac-la-croix-indigenous-pony] We have an article on these at Lac La Croix Indian Pony where the BBC article was used as a source by one person but removed by another. Long story short, we have no reliable sources for this extremely dubious claim. I can find two sources discussing DNA.[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6070244/][https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731111001212] There was one at http://www.laclacroixindianpony.com/pdfs/cothranDNAreport but I can't find it even using Wayback. It was used as a source in one of the first two, can't recall which. Doug Weller talk 08:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

There is a whole article about it here at Horses in the United States with lots of good references. Epachamo (talk) 09:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Apologetics responses: all must go

These anachronisms are pretty straightforwardly attested to as anachronisms. We don't write point-counterpoint articles on Wikipedia. I will be going through this article and removing "apologetics say" as WP:FRINGE WP:POVPUSH. You can keep apologetics in if anyone without an agenda to prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon has noticed. Otherwise, sorry, gang, Pseudoscience/pseudoscholarship OUT! jps (talk) 11:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The subject of "apologetics" has been discussed ad nauseum here and on the previous talk page linked above, the consensus so far has been to keep those parts and to keep them under special headings. It's all there to read trawl through, but as far as I recall (it's been a while), the main reasons have been:

• As a religious work, it's acceptable/encouraged for Wikipedia to acknowledge that some people believe it, and discuss (with appropriate sources) why they don't either reject or re-frame it when presented with evidence to the contrary.
• "Apologist" does not necessarily equate to "fringe". Some of the anachronisms on the page are not as clear-cut as either side like to pretend. See, for example, previous discussions on what the word "steel" meant in 1828 vs today. Also see the section on silk: Paragraph 1 seems to imply (without references) that the BoM was talking about woven, Asian silk, Paragraph 3 has 4 different non-Mormon references discussing the pre-Columbian wild silk trade. But 3 counts as apologetic, and 1 is likely a majority view, if only because most people aren't silk nerds.
• The title "Apologist perspective" makes it clear, or at the very least implies, that said perspective is not the mainstream view. It isn't being given undue weight here.
• The vast majority of editors on this page have a strong POV, either that the BoM is historical or that it's a load of dingos' kidneys.

As I read WP:FRINGE, the current layout is at least attempting to comply with the policy: religious claims should be evaluated, including on a scientific level where relevant, and we don't have to omit notable non-mainstream perspectives. Pastychomper (talk) 10:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)