I've heard a lot about European plants and animals in the Book of Mormon that shouldn't be there, like horses, wheat and sheep.

What about New World creatures that are not mentioned. I believe corn is mentioned as a crop, but what about tomatoes and potatoes? Those were unknown in Europe before Columbus.

Where the buffalo and llama mentioned? Buffalo was the center of the Plains Indian economy. They migrated to follow the herds.

Llamas were the only domesticated animal in the Americas and critical to the Incas. Incas also ate guinea pigs, which are never mentioned.

Perhaps the Book of Mormon people never made it that far south, so that would explain the lack of llamas and alpacas, but what about the buffalo? That would be like explaining Canada without mentioning beavers, moose or geese.

Tomatoes and potatoes are never mentioned.
Neither are buffalo nor llamas.

If Smith didn't have something in his immediate vicinity, it's not in there. How about that.

Or avocados, corn, cranberries, blueberries, quinoa, amaranth, peanuts, pecans...

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tomatoes and potatoes are never mentioned.
> Neither are buffalo nor llamas.
>
> If Smith didn't have something in his immediate
> vicinity, it's not in there. How about that.

The absence of the camel has me amazed. They are in the Bible, but not in the BoM. And therefrom flow musings on the llama.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2015 12:54PM by me.

Why is it that so many liars don't appreciate the value of extensive research? Or in Joseph's case, even a smidgeon of research?

Well you just have to know how to lie correctly.

1. Tell a series of whopper lies.
2. Denounce anyone that doubts as horrible liars.
3. Make up new lies to support the original lies, occasionally editing your original lie.
4. Threaten, abuse, and/or kill anyone that doesn't believe you still.
5. Use any means possible to isolate the few that do believe you to prevent contamination.
6. Rinse and repeat for 180 years until manipulation is almost perfect.

^^^5

Haha. You make it all so simple.

The Inca domesticated the llama several centuries after BoM times, so there's no problem with it not being mentioned.

Other plants widely used in the Americas, but not mentioned in the BoM:
manioc, peppers, cacao, melons, squash, beans, cocoa, avocados, amaranth and chia.

Animals of the area but not mentioned:
Coatimundi, jaguar, turkeys, dogs, turkeys, ducks.

I thought the llama was domesticated about 6,000 years ago.

I'm confused, Richard. I've read that the llama was domesticated 6000 to 7000 years ago, and domesticated llamas were in widespread use by 5500 years ago.

Doesn't that overlap BoM times?

peculiargifts Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm confused, Richard. I've read that the llama
> was domesticated 6000 to 7000 years ago, and
> domesticated llamas were in widespread use by 5500
> years ago.
>
> Doesn't that overlap BoM times?

Sorry - I guess I'm wrong. Somewhere I thought I had read that the llama was not domesticated until the Inca period, which is long after BoM times.

It still is a problem for any Mormon who is not an adherent of the "hemispheric model," since the llama was not native to either North America or Central America.

Or am I wrong about that, too?

...well, maybe. We just don't know what animals were in existance during Moroni's time.


http://40.media.tumblr.com/194b9ae407f3e1fd03bae437ceaa4f6f/tumblr_mgs0w9XxaO1qbyf2jo1_1280.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/d5/64/f3/d564f3967779b8a8f03daa4be6356231.jpg

http://www.chuckstoyland.com/potpourri/jackalope%20postcards/Jackalope%20Riding%20Jack/3%20Jackalope%20Riding%20Jack%20PC%205.jpg

RPackham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Inca domesticated the llama several centuries
> after BoM times, so there's no problem with it not
> being mentioned.
>

I just did a quick search online and it looks like the Llama?Alpaca was first domesticated about 6000 years ago.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/Llama-And-Alpaca.htm

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/268/1485/2575

"Other plants widely used in the Americas, but not mentioned in the BoM:
manioc, peppers, cacao, melons, squash, beans, cocoa, avocados, amaranth and chia."

On that note: The "three sisters"---corn, beans, and squash---were the basic staple crops of ancient native Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_%28agriculture%29

The fact that the BOM mentions mostly Old World plants and animals, while being virtually silent on New World plants and animals, unmistakably identifies the BOM as a 19th-century work which drew heavily on the Bible for its content, rather than on actual items which existed in the ancient western hemisphere.

"I, Nephi, enjoying a fresh bowl of guacamole and tortilla chips..."

"I, Nephi, enjoying a fresh bowl of guacamole and tortilla chips..."

With chili salsa, and washed down with unsweetened cocoa.

Little known BoM fauna:

Korihorse: sometimes known as Mr. Ed, a stallion who was struck dumb for refusing to believe in Wilbur.

Cumalong: this creature would follow you home, and your mother would forbid you to keep it for a pet.

Ollie Oxen Free: What we now call buffalo, only without the wings.

Snakeherds: These were snakes that herded the free ranging Ollie Oxen.

The Gadianton Robin: Also called a Robin Hood, this bird would fly off with anything that wasn't tied down.

Monkeys.
Tropical birds.
Chocolate/Cocoa

Not to mention no mention of so many poisonous snakes.
No crocodiles or alligators?

Actually "poisonous serpents" are mentioned several times which I assume might refer to snakes.

"poisonous serpents" is a descriptor reserved for apostates and other crawly little vermin.

Cureloms and cumoms must refer to alpacas and Llamas or
buffalo or alligators or...Joey made it all up.

it is just as important to remember the right stuff that is not mentioned as it is to remember the wrong stuff that is mentioned in the BOM. The BOM talks about fine linen and silks, neither of which existed. (Linen for instances is made from flax which came from Europe with the settlers.) but it fails to talk about cotton and wool at all and they have found plenty of American Indian mummies buried in cottons and wool. And hides, of course.

It would have been so much cooler if there had been parables and sayings built around some sort of western hemisphere landscapes.

Like the parable of the buffalo who stand in a circle to protect their young. There'd be a Primary song about this now:

WE STAND INSIDE THE CIRCLE

We stand inside the circle
Buffalo butts are all we see
But we know it's really Jesus
Who's protecting you and me.

So we stamp, stamp our feet
And we sway, sway, sway
We're safe inside the circle
With Jesus today!

Don't you think the little kids would like getting up and stamping their feet a little?

That's not very reverent.

Awww! I was really feeling the Spirit (some sort of spirit, anyway) and American pride when I wrote that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2015 09:55AM by seekyr.

Could that "spirit" perhaps have been some type of highly volatile organic substance?

C2H5OH, for example? It appears often, and in a stunning variety shapes, sizes and intensities.

I think sometimes it even talks. At least I seem to remember something like that.

Coming soon to youtube....

Go for it! :-D

But it needs more verses.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2015 04:21PM by seekyr.

If Joe didn't (accidently) hit it about tabaccy, the whole WoW would have been ridiculed out of acceptance.

EricK graciously archived this one, and I promised a Part II, and honest Lamanite, it's sitting on my big work station desktop upstairs, having "survived" two or three computer upgrades... I'll try to get it finished this winter; it discusses such items as haploid/tetraploid cotton and honeybees.

This one is a thorough de-bunking of Mopologist John L. Sorenson (the original "Tapir John") and his hyper-diffusionist nonsense about Old World/New World Contact. Some of the older links have expired, but the relevant ones still work.

(note to "newer sorts" who do believe in that tripe: It didn't happen, period, other than Vikings in Newfoundland, possible Polynesians in South American, and Simon Southerton just sent me some interesting stuff about a very old connection between the ancestors of Native Americans and some Australoid DNA sequences. At this point it's inconclusive, but worth looking at)

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

>Cultural "Diffusion" has long been an important concept in anthropological circles, and instances of its occurrence are easy to find in the historical record. Chickens that originated in China and the Far East found their way to European farms and tables by the Middle Ages, and the use of the alphabet in writing spread from Mesopotamia and the Phoenicians outward, with contributions from Egypt and elsewhere bringing us the "final product." Similarly in the New World, three plants, corn (maize), squash, and beans, clearly became widespread in Native American cultures on both continents and formed the basis of their agriculture and diet.

>"Diffusionism" in the sense of plants, domesticated animals, and cultural inventions and practices being transported across oceans before 1492 is another matter altogether. And of course the relevance to Mormonism is that the Book of Mormon is claimed to be a "diffusionist document," with religious practices being brought from the Middle East to the Americas circa 600 B.C. As has been noted here many times, it was a common 19th Century idea, and Joseph Smith certainly held no monopoly on its tenets.

This is a point that I hadn't considered before! The O/P and entire thread has been very educational for me!

As a BIC I came to the conclusion that the BOM was totally fiction on my mission in the 90's, but I hadn't considered this point before.

Stan Larson was a former church-employed translator. He studied the life's work of the late BOM researcher Thomas Stuart Ferguson, and published a book on the subject titled "Quest for the Gold Plates." Speaking of the animal anachronisms within the BOM, Stan Larson wrote:

"Pre-Columbian Mayan hieroglyphs and ceramic art depict various mammals, such
as jaguars, tapirs, deer, monkeys, dogs, peccaries, coatimundis, armadillos,
rabbits, gophers, and leaf-nosed bats. The largest mammals alive in
Mesoamerica when the Europeans arrived were jaguars, pumas, tapirs, and
deer.....
Several species of horses existed in prehistoric America, including the
Pleistocene horse, 'equus scotti.' At least 130 individuals of 'Equus
occidentalis' were trapped in the La Brea tar pits. B. H. Roberts warned that
these Pleistocene finds at Rancho La Brea cannot be used to sustain the Book of
Mormon claim concerning horses, since there is 'positive and well nigh
universal testimony about the absence of the horse from America within historic
times.' More recently Bruce J. McFadden, curator of the Florida Museum of
Natural History at the University of Florida, stated that the extinction of the
horse in the Americas occurred about 11,000 years ago at the close of the
Pleistocene era. This is supported by fifteen good radiocarbon dates, with the
youngest being 10,370+- 350 years ago. The extinction of the horse before the
growth of civilization in Mesoamerica is also supported by the fact that no
depictions of the horse occur in any pre-Columbian art.....
It was an assumption by common people in early nineteenth-century America that
horses---as well as asses, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, and swine---were native to
America, though serious scholars were aware that these animals had been
imported by the Europeans. After surveying the most up-to-date evidence,
Deanne Matheny concluded that 'at this point then there is no convincing
evidence that the horse survived until the period of the Mesoamerican
civilizations.' B. H. Roberts referred to the difficulties of establishing the
existence of the horse in America during historic times as 'our embarrassing
problems.' The absence of support for the animals mentioned in the Book of
Mormon---at the same time as there exists clear evidence of what the
Mesoamerican animals actually were---constitutes a serious obstacle to
verifying the historicity of the Book of Mormon."
("Quest for the Gold Plates", pp. 184-194.)

To believe that the BOM is authentic, one has to believe that sometime between the first century A.D. and the European invasion of the 15th century, that somehow, all those animals mentioned in the BOM such as horses, cows, sheep, pigs, asses, etc., mysteriously disappeared, to be replaced by jaguars, tapirs, monkeys, etc., as Larson names---and that there is NOT A SINGLE TRACE LEFT OF THEIR EXISTENCE. No fossils, no carvings on stone stele, nothing.

So, which scenario is more likely? All trace of those animals mysteriously disappeared, or the BOM is fiction?

Old thread on this subject:

http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon265.htm

Also, there were no Bow and Arrows in the Americas (outside of the Arctic region) at that time.

http://anthropology.ua.edu/reprints/22.pdf