I am only about halfway through this presentation and have an important question. Why are you using The Maya, as your basis as it is very clear from the evidence that Joseph Smith was of the opinion that the Lamanites lived and the Book of Mormon is based on them living in North America. When He (The Lord through Joseph) called missionaries to preach to the Lamanites he sent them to Missouri and the western U.S. He did not send them to South and Central America.

@matthewsmith5967

11 ай бұрын

It would not be inconceivable that people of Lamanite descent migrated Northward at some point in time and intermingled with any populations already living there. Indeed, given the number of migrations described in the Book of Mormon into the land beyond the "narrow neck of land" to the North, I would say that it would be incredibly likely that there are at least some people of Lamanite/Nephite descent. That's just a guess though, I'm far from an expert on it.

@tykempton8562

11 ай бұрын

@@matthewsmith5967 I was always taught and my belief from reading the book of Mormon is that this land was uninhabited and would remain a secret. In 2 Nephi Lehi stated, “shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord” (v. 6), and that the promised land “should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (v. 8). Lehi told his children that if they remained righteous that they would prosper and “be kept from all other nations” so that they would “possess” the land “unto themselves” (v. 9). If it was already inhabited by and known by the Inca, Maya, Olmec, etc. then how do you reconcile that. Joseph also was of the same opinion based on his private writings, etc. I realize that his letters are not revelation but, he supposedly had more knowledge than anyone that has ever lived up to today.

@dr33776

9 ай бұрын

​@tykempton8562 you can't reconcile that. The apologists and the church are against the wall on this one (DNA not present in native americans) that they have to come up with far fetch theories that contradict the book of mormon claims directly.

@UtahKent

6 ай бұрын

​@@matthewsmith5967. Exactly. Helaman 3:1-14 is Moroni's summary of accounts about Nephites and Lamanites who left the land Bountiful and traveled "an exceedingly great distance" into a land northwards which has north, South, east, and west seas. The rest of the Book of Mormon only mentions east and west seas. But these people had traveled so far and spread into a land with a different topography than the principle region of Nephi to Zarahemla.

@UtahKent

6 ай бұрын

Helaman 3:1-15.

I'll need to read their papers, but one concern I have is another control they have to implement is comparing another series of fictional works to Coe's book, in order to see if the volume of correspondences was possible of any work, and the Book of Mormon was therefore not special.

@Hala-ataa

2 жыл бұрын

Did you finish the video? They did that with View of the Hebrews. Or do you mean in addition?

@HoosierDaddyActual

2 жыл бұрын

I’m a true believer, but many of the Mayan facts from the reference book are fairly common sense (ie, royal families considered themselves as dynasties, governments sought more power and land). This means a fictional writer would easily intuit facts like these. I purchased the manuscript on amazon and am reading through it and may change my mind.

@Hala-ataa

2 жыл бұрын

@@HoosierDaddyActual yes, those factors were given the lowest weight though. And they were eventually dropped to a value of zero when they recalculated by downgrading each category

@TheYgds

2 жыл бұрын

@@Hala-ataa I really wish youtube would tell me when people respond to my comments more often, it seems to be very selective. Anyway, that's not what I mean. View of the Hebrews isn't the sort of work that I think would be appropriate. Fantasy works would be, particularly the modern variety, that have massive, multi-level world building. I remember some time ago hearing quotes from Lucy Mack Smith that Joseph used to regale his family with stories, information and trivia about the Nephites that he learned from Moroni, years before he translated the Book of Mormon. This is the sort of activity engaged in by fantasy authors, and a mechanism to world build. It could be used as an indication that Joseph spent years conceiving of Nephite culture before actually dictating the book, and if it was the case, makes the production of the Book of Mormon substantially less miraculous. Therefore, a better test is to compare "The Maya" to works like the Silmarillion, Wheel of Time, West of Eden and others. The hypothesis of a fraud has to take into account works of similar complexity and test whether the mere process of world-building produces a certain threshold volume of likely correspondences. In other words, you have to account for trends in human creativity and fantasy, not just ruminations on where Indigenous people came from, which View of the Hebrews is. "Manuscript Found" was a better comparison, as the Spaulding manuscript was a work of fantasy. I think though, that they need to use at least 5 such works to really build a case. The other thing that needs to be considered is how likely a particular correspondence is to be made, modifying the tiered scoring they gave, as it would indicate whether a particular correspondence, while rated at a high tier of significance, it is also a correspondence that occurs frequently in similar documents, and therefore requires a scoring adjustment. I am not a statitician, I'm a biochemist, but the more comparisons that are made, the more you need to account for the potential of false positives. How conservative this adjustment needs to be is something I couldn't guess, but I'd probably shoot for something more akin to a Bonferroni rather than a Tukey-Kramer level of adjustment (I'm just making a close metaphorical comparison, I know that ANOVA multiple comparisons significance adjustments are from a different statistical branch). Both those points though, would then beg the question of the knowledge of the sophistication of the Author. Comparing J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Terry Pratchet, Mark Twain, Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven to Joseph Smith Jr. in his early 20's, even with collaboration of his colleagues, is like comparing intellectual Clydesdales to an eohippus. As a result, I'm not sure if showing a difference in world building trend or correspondence trend would come out in favour of Joseph or against him. If he differs, it might be interpreted as proof of divine influence, or of poor workmanship, if it comes out as highly similar, it could mean he was just like these authors, or that the Book of Mormon stands up as a highly sophisticated work. I think more needs to be done. It'll never convince an academic outside of the church, no matter how rigorous it is, but it is still good evening conversation and trivia.

The common assumption that 3 Nephi 8 describes volcanism seems insufficient to me because it fails to account for all of the phenomena reported as parts of the "great tempest" that arose. Volcanism was likely a component in places where volcanoes exist, but the cataclysm was far larger and more world-wide, so the absence of recognizable volcanism in Eastern North America from the 1st AD century cannot rule out the Heartland Hypothesis.

@davus4242

2 жыл бұрын

Blinded by the "light", ic. Yes, please do factor in all the other phenomena reported; not only does it rule out the "heartland hypothesis", it annihilates it.

A Bayesian Statistical Analysis works real well in a the medical example used to illustrate the principle in the video, but I'm still skeptical of the application of using it to draw parallels in these 2 texts. I think I'd be more convinced if we had examples where the method was used to validate (or invalidate) what we already know. For example, can we use this method to support or refute the the validity of the Escalante expedition by comparing Dominguez' diary with a current "Maya" type text? And, then, let's do the same thing and compare obvious works of fiction and see how well we can get them to "statistically" fit with any "Maya"-type equivalent. I wonder if I could show that Frank Herbert was a good guesser of medieval Arabian society by comparing the 6-categories using Dune and a contemporary archeological work? Okay, maybe he made up the worms, and maybe they were allegorical, because there are so many other "hits." Well, not a good example, but hopefully conveys the point.

@TheYgds

2 жыл бұрын

I do think it's a good example. More comparison and statistical adjustments need to be made. It was a lot of work, but much, much more rigorous work needs to be done.

Holy smokes

Simple questions do fold false ideologies. There is the trinitarian ideology that is upset by the question: What is a son? The answer is usually something along the lines of whoever identifies as a son of God.

4.2 x 10^-132% chance that the Book of Mormon is fake? Interesting.

I recently read Coe's book _Cracking the Maya Code._ An enjoyable story, but boy howdy, the man had an ego.

I really couldn’t follow this...

The book of mormon took place in north America. Look at all the mayan, incan, Aztec and etc. Temples... they are not the same as the house of Israel temples which have ramps instead of stairs (a direct Commandment in deut) they have no rivers for cleaning nearby, no holy of holies and so much more... all there temples were for human sacrifices and are not Israelites. Nephi built a temple with all the correct specifications in north America. Watch the playlist, read the scriptures... Joseph Smith was Commanded to take the gospel to the lamenites and he did so right in new York. Please get off this money making scheme and just do some thinking!

@Hala-ataa

2 жыл бұрын

You’re correct in stating there were Lamanites in North America and Joseph began preaching to the seed of Lehi. However, the Book of Mormon does not claim to give an account of every child of Lehi. So there may likely have been Lamanites and even Nephites who resided in one continent who were not the people of the Book of Mormon. Remember Mormon could not write even one hundredth part of what the history contained. One question we have to ask is if the Book took place up north, why was there no mention of snow, even for battles that took place in the winter when Lamanites wore nothing but a loincloth? In the Great Lakes area? The Homeland theory is good in matching the Hopewell and Adena people to Nephite/Lamanite/Jaredite culture but it’s a poor match for the actual events of the Book of Mormon. Don’t be so certain when you post. It comes across as lazy and combative to people who have done much more research.

@Hala-ataa

2 жыл бұрын

Also, at 48:41 he describes how long it’s been in North America to have erupting volcanoes. That rules out the descriptions in 3rd Nephi.

@Quagthistle

2 жыл бұрын

Well, technically, Mesoamerica IS in North America, just the southern part of it. I assume, however, that you mean it took place in the US (i.e. the "Heartland Model"). If this were true, then the Lamanites (fighting wars in the Book of Mormon during winter time) would have frozen their loincloths off. No offense is intended, but it'd be best to give up on the ridiculous Heartland Model. It's utter nonsense that neither agrees with the Book of Mormon nor history (but makes American exceptionists feel better about their general levels of racism). Your point about temples doesn't really change anything, both because there's no sign of Israeliteish temples in the ancient US and because the remaining Lamanites and other peoples altered and built over the Nephite temples for centuries. I'm not saying that none of the people from the Book of Mormon made it to the present-day US. Clearly, Moroni did, and likely others followed trying to catch him (perhaps never returning home if they feared punishment). But to restrict the entire book to current US lands raises a lot of problems. For example, the Book of Mormon mentions fevers (common all across the American continents - think Malaria), but never mentions snow. Nowhere in the US is there a narrow neck of land, surrounded by sea (not rivers), that divides the land into a land northward (not north) and a land southward (not south). We're also lacking in volcanos, unless you count Yellowstone, which, again, is too far north because of snow. For another example, just look at the Pacific Oceanic currents. If Lehi's party sailed along present-day Papua New Guinea, as their last connection to the "old world", the Equatorial Countercurrent would have been a nearly straight shot that dropped them off around the area of Guatamala or southern Mexico. To take the Huroshio and California currents to the US coast, they would have had to sail far to the north, almost to Alaska, to ride those currents, a longer and far more dangerous route. These are, of course, just a few examples that just don't fit with the "Heartland Model".

@Hala-ataa

2 жыл бұрын

@@Quagthistle lol racism? You’re saying racism is the reason people believe in the heartland? Get out of here. You know the natives living in the heartland were the same genetic people as the MesoAmericans right? So how would it be racist to favor that theory?

@ballardfx1140

2 жыл бұрын

@@Hala-ataa all the dna below north America come from Asia! Watch my playlist, you will see that the climate in America was different, it was tropical around the great lakes.

You could do analysis of the Book of Abraham without *any* math involved. Joseph got skunked! So much for the world's greatest guesser. I view this analysis in the same light as those of the LDS world who kept backpedaling as they tried to rationalize his utter failure with the papyrus/papyri he "translated." FAIR Mormon has also failed miserably with their rebuttals to Jeremy Rennell's CES Letters. Instead of trying to guage lucky guesses, I'd rather see someone honestly assess how often in the history of the church that "prophets, seers, and revelators" supposedly getting their messages directly from God, got it so horribly wrong. Heck, prophets even contradict each other. It's a house of cards that no honest examinations can keep from collapsing. Just my $.02 as a nevermo atheist/agnostic.

@blizzard2oo

Жыл бұрын

Daniel H Peterson single-handedly destroyed the CES letter as a lazy, poorly researched effort not deserving of serious rebuttal.

@williamcharles2117

Жыл бұрын

@@blizzard2oo - see Zelph on the Shelf's "FAIR Mormon Finds More Maybe Technically Possible Responses to CES Letter." Not impressed with D. Peterson at all.

@chadwright1006

Жыл бұрын

Please then account for the source/authorship of the Book of Mormon. It has been attempted for nearly 200yrs and EVERYTHING but Divine origin has SO many glaring flaws and inconsistencies that no thoughtful seeker of truth can say “there it is!” to any of them. If there IS some other source aside from what Joseph claimed, that makes a 23 yr old uneducated farm boy from rural 1820’s America smarter and more clever than EVERY SINGLE critic ever since 1830. It is very tempting to disregard all the dozens and even hundreds of evidences of its authenticity and hold tightly to “assurances” of its fraudulence offered by “experts,” especially when Divine authorship comes with massive lifestyle changes, up to and including loss of employment by many whose livelihoods are dependent upon Joseph’s fakery. I would be surprised if ANY of those who have put forth alternate theories of origin for the Book of Mormon EVER left their minds open in even the slightest degree to the possibility that it actually IS what it purports itself to be: an additional book that records witnesses of Jesus Christ and His teachings. These two researchers not only left open the possibility that the book is a fake, but began with the OVERWHELMING assumption that it was.

@williamcharles2117

Жыл бұрын

@@chadwright1006 - a lack of formal education is not the same thing as being uneducated. His mother spoke of his ability to spin tall tales. All the claims of some aspect of Mormonism being somehow "proof" of its divine origins as ludicrous on its face. You could as easily claim that various failed end times prophets must be true because people sold all they had to their detriment in expectation of the last days. Joseph Smith was a con artist and a grifter. His death (which was largely brought on by his own actions) probably helped facilitate the perpetuation of his cult. It is clear there was no divinely guided succession as there were (and still are) so many offshoots following the "prophet's" death. For a religion that was supposed to be a "restoration" of the message God had for his people, it was every bit as garbled as what went before it. The apologists for Mormonism don't have a leg to stand on.

@chadwright1006

Жыл бұрын

@@williamcharles2117 And you just completely proved my point. No, Joseph could not have done what you say he did. If the Book of Mormon were merely a "tall tale" you would have given me an acceptable answer. I have read and studied it over a hundred times for the past 30 years. ANYBODY who has read it through thoroughly even once understands the complexity of the book. "Tall tale" doesn't even scratch the surface. At least to those who have studied it deeply. Please provide a plausible answer to where the BOM came from which includes ALL the things the book contains that--at the time of publication--were scoffed at, but which subsequently have been found to be legitimate. Ancient American civilizations and ALL that goes with that; knowledge of Saudi Arabian Geography (recently discovered places and names that correspond 100%); Chiasms (see Alma 36 and dozens of other instances); Semitic writing styles; MULTIPLE varied writing styles based on wordprint analysis (a recent discovery), and all of the beautiful doctrine? All I ask is that you open the door just a sliver to the possibility that it MIGHT be what it says it is. ANY ONE of the things I just offered would be proof in itself. Taken together it becomes literally irrefutable. Those who ignore all of it do so at the peril of becoming far more than just an ostrich with its head in the sand. It appears you have already closed your mind to ANY possibility other than what you have decided is truth. Maybe don't judge the book by your opinion of Joseph Smith, but check out what he brought to light (the Book of Mormon), and THEN decide if you've listened to the right sources about who Joseph was. There is a right way and a wrong way to decide if something is real, or is a fake. You are going about it the wrong way. Just think about these things for a while and decide if you've really tried to be open-minded enough to come to a legitimate conclusion.