What does this picture represent?

https://twitter.com/LDSFacsimile3/status/523178132137070592


Please post your guesses to this thread. If you happen to recognize this pic, please do not reveal it to the others--I want as many unbiased opinions as possible.

Nephi's Bow of Steel?

I should add that there are no wrong answers. Here is a little more context:

This was a graffito that was scratched onto a potsherd and later uncovered in Mesoamerica. Preliminary dating placed it sometime after 150 AD.

Looks like a guy holding a knife or stick.

edit: Oh, I get it, the morg are claiming it's "evidence" for the BoM, right? That it shows a bow or sword?
Far too small.
Might even be a male organ (like the wall scratchings in Pompeii) :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 03:28PM by ificouldhietokolob.

If it's a sword, it's definitely made of steel; the apologists say so, and the spirit tells them these things.

It's a mammoth or mastodon tusk, further proof of elephants in the BOM...

It could be a horse rib; one of the Nephite warriors had this mighty steed who served him faithfully in battle, and after he expired, he kept this as a sacred token of his wonderful servant.

No way it could be an eagle feather, no sireee...

Here's Tapir John at his finest... I've still got Part II of this one, but I keep getting distracted, and I'm always worried I'll get accused of beating up on a crazy old man.

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon606.htm

Apolgies for the reality that a couple of the links have expired (thanks again, Eric, for archiving it), but the one to his buddy Johannessen's "slideshow" still works. Share it with a legitimate archaeologist you love; they can always use a laugh.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2014 03:49PM by SL Cabbie.

I am with those that are thinking knife or stick. My best guess would be a crudely-drawn obsidian blade being held by a priest during some kind of ritual (very crudely drawn).

Like Holy the Ghost (I was shocked when that came through as the first guess...interesting), Sorenson confidently sees a bow, assuring his readers of the same in a September 1984 Ensign article, "Digging into the Book of Mormon: Our Changing Understanding of Ancient America and Its Scripture", as follows:

"The intimidating effect of outdated views is shown by a recent incident. One of my former students wrote to me with some concern because his professor at an eastern university had assured him that the bow and arrow, mentioned in several places in the Book of Mormon, was not present in Mesoamerica until A.D. 900. But I could assure him that a potsherd from central Mexico has scratched on it a sketch of a man with such a weapon. The fragment is dated approximately eight hundred years prior to the 'recognized' date cited by the professor."


Not unsurprising, Sorenson fails to provide an image of the graffito in his Ensigh article, so the faithful have no way of judging for themselves.

Back in 2005, I had a personal email exchange with Tapir John. This exchange taught me that these apologists are victims of their own delusion. I was pressing him about his use of an obscure Spanish-language secondary source for the Ensign article, when the true source was Paul Tolstoy, "Utilitarian artifacts of Central Mexico." At that point, he claimed that Tolstoy, who was arguing for an earlier date for the bow in Mesoamerica based on lighter stone points found at Teotihuacan, wrote the following, "... As a final piece of evidence in this matter, and 'one that is not far from conclusive,' we have the rim of a San Martin Brown bowl recovered by Vaillant in a Teotihuacan II deposit below two floors at El Corral, which bears a scratched graffito, seemingly of a man holding a bow and arrow (fig. 3,q) [Paul Tolstoy, 1971, 283. (See Tolstoy for exact citations of sources he cited.)]


Unfortunately, for Tapir John, I actually bothered to "See Tolstoy" and found that Tolstoy did not write, "one that is not far from conclusive", but actually wrote just the opposite, "one that is far from conclusive".

In other words, dear deluded Tapir John L. Sorenson saw what he wanted to see in the graffito and in the words of the archaeological journal he was reading.

My god, this is the very definition of straining at gnats while swallowing elephants. There are WAY BIGGER PROBLEMS with mormonism than when the bow showed up in mesoamerica.

I thought I was being silly. I didn't realize I'd get it right.

...well "right" as far as the apologists think...

I was not clear on my meaning. Beating Sorenson up over his drivel is fine. I'm just gob smacked that he'd even bring such stupid things up, like a vague beyond interpretation image as evidence for bows. Or worse, that "study" of presumed projectile heads of weights suitable for arrows.

Meanwhile, for example, not a single pre-columbian Israelite allele has been found in a single native american alive. Remember when SWK reported there were 60-something million "lamanite" descendants alive today in the americas and polynesia.

It's barking nuts.

OK guys

Let us call a spade uh spade for what it is.

It is the premortal joseph grasping his immortal woodie

Or steelie.

Well, how about a primitively smolten iron rod?

Never mind that.

Please note how it smites from both ends.

Looks like a Nephite holding to the iron rod.

Its a scimitar, obviously made of steel and quite probably bought and paid for with metal coins

Common implement for hunting small game.

http://ehumanitydev.pti.indiana.edu/artifact.php?artifact_id=6751&query=%7C%7C%7C%7C&database=ehumanity

Ahhh, I think that is a better fit than the obsidian blade. Good catch!

Min's erection ripped off?

It made me think of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byDiILrNbM4

It's obviously a churro, no doubt covered with precolumbian cinnamon and sugar.

Okay, now I am thinking obsidian blade again. Check these out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_in_Maya_civilization#mediaviewer/File:Takalik_Abaj_obsidian_1.jpg

Looks like a jack in the box...which takes on a whole new interpretation with ladell's view and all.