Posted on 03/02/2005 10:33:03 AM PST by Destro
February 06, 2005
History, but not as America knows it
Sarah Baxter, New York
EVERYTHING (well almost everything) you know about American history is wrong. With these provocative words, a book that turns conventional wisdom about the history of the United States on its head has caught the imagination of the country’s conservatives. According to The Politically Incorrect Guide to the History of America, a surprise bestseller, early settlers treated native Americans — whom it calls Indians — with respect, buying rather than stealing their land.
President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated the slaves, was opposed to racial intermarriage and did not launch the civil war to free black people, the book says.
So it goes on: rather than saving the country from the Great Depression, President Franklin D Roosevelt deepened the economic misery of the 1930s; Senator Joseph McCarthy was right — there were reds under the beds; and President John F Kennedy’s politics were no better than his tomcat morals.
The book has climbed into the top 10 of the New York Times bestseller list thanks to enthusiastic word of mouth and favourable plugs on right-wing talk shows. The liberal New York Times is appalled. “It is tempting to dismiss the book as fringe scholarship, not worth worrying about, but the numbers say otherwise,” the paper commented.
For its author, Thomas E Woods, an Ivy League- educated historian who teaches at a community college in New York, the sales are sweet vindication of a message he believes his colleagues do not want to hear. “It’s a much more serious message than the title suggests, based on some of the most recent scholarship,” he said.
Politically correct teaching in schools has long been a gripe of the right. Noreen McCann, 45, home-schools her six children in St Louis, Missouri, rather than expose them to left-wing thinking.
“I think Christopher Columbus was a good person for discovering America and I teach my children that he wanted to become wealthy and spread the Catholic faith to America,” she said. “I tell them, ‘Your daddy also wants to help people through charity and make money for himself and his family’.”
The Indians, McCann added, were granted too much uncritical reverence in schools. “Modern textbooks whitewash the Indians by saying they lived in harmony with nature and treated it with respect. They used to herd 100 buffalo at a time over cliffs and slaughtered them a herd a time.”
The alleged dominance of the left in teaching positions at universities is another touchstone issue. There was a national furore last week after Ward Churchill, a lecturer in “ethnic studies” at the University of Colorado and an expert on native American history, was invited to lecture at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
The student newspaper revealed that he had written an essay after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 applauding the “gallant sacrifices” of the suicide “combat teams”.
After a fierce row, including questions about whether the long-haired lecturer was falsely passing himself off as a native American, Churchill was forced to resign his chairmanship of the ethnic studies department and the university has launched an inquiry into whether he should be fired.
But a detailed look at some of the more unorthodox views in Woods’s guide are giving pause even to rabid rightwingers. It turns out that the 32-year-old writer from Massachusetts, the cradle of American liberalism, is a defender of the right of Southern states to secede from the union.
Woods is a founder member of the League of the South, a group which argues that “white Southerners” should not have to “give control over their civilisation and its institutions to another race, whether it be native blacks or Hispanic immigrants”.
John Kienker of the Claremont Institute, a right-of-centre history think tank, agreed with Woods that there was a problem with politically correct teaching in schools. “The American founding fathers are presented as terrible racists and wealthy men who oppressed the poor.”
He claimed, however, that Woods’s view of the past was no less distorted. “If you follow his book, you will learn that Lincoln was a tyrant and the real heroes of America were the Southern Confederates.”
Woods admits to sharing some common ground with the left. His book deliberately stops at the year 2000, when George W Bush was elected president. Although his account of American history has won praise from cheerleaders of Bush, he is politically aligned to the isolationist wing of the conservative movement, championed by Pat Buchanan, the populist former presidential candidate.
“If anybody has misled us into a war, it is Bush,” he said.
We know that the Indians/Native Americans had no horses before the arrival of the Spanish because this is recorded even in Indian folk lore, in the methods Indians used to hunt before horses came about (which changed the way Plains Indians hunted), in the genetic stock of horses in America (traced to their Iberian ancestors), etc.
http://www.bcmmin.org/bomarch.html
ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE BOOK OF MORMON
Places, People, Cities and Coins Many Mormons will claim archaeological support for the Book of Mormon and try to place its cities and lands in Central and Middle America. But, unlike the Bible which has much detailed archaeological support, the Book of Mormon has very little that is officially recognized by the Mormon Church. Members will claim many things but there is no or little official recognition of these claims. This was demonstrated in the Mormon teaching manual Book of Mormon, Student Manual Religion 121 and 122, 1989, page 163. This page is titled "Possible Book of Mormon Sites." The main idea in the title (Possible Sites) is reinforced at the bottom of the page with the following statement: "No effort should be made to identify points on this map with any existing geographical locations." If Book of Mormon sites (cities and places) were known this would have been the place to say so. The reality is, with few exceptions, no coins and artifacts and few people, cities and places identified in the Book of Mormon have ever been officially located by the Mormon Church. Exceptions include Joseph Smith, the City of Manti and Hill Cumorah (near Palmyra, New York). Hill Cumorah is the place where Joseph Smith allegedly received the gold plates that he allegedly translated into the Book of Mormon and the place where two great extermination battles allegedly took place (Ether 15:2, 11; Mormon 6:9-15, 8:2-3). Joseph Smith had the following to say about the City of Manti:
The camp passed through Huntsville, in Randolph County [Missouri], which has been appointed as one of the Stakes of Zion, and is the ancient site of the City of Manti.... (The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star, "History of Joseph Smith", Vol. 16, p. 296)
The City of Manti is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The index of this book under Manti, Land of, has: "most southerly land of Nephites" and under Manti, City of, it has: "chief city in land of Manti." All this information then leads to the conclusion that the Land of Manti is allegedly in the State of Missouri, in the United States. Mormon historian and Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, in his book Doctrines of Salvation, Volume 3, pages 239-241, came to the same conclusion. It still remains, there is no archaeological evidence in support of the Book of Mormon officially accepted by the Mormon Church.
Animals, Plants and Metals
The Book of Mormon in its main story line (roughly 600 BC to AD 400, which excludes the Book of Ether) speaks of a variety of animals, plants and metals that existed during its time frame:
- Iron: 2 Nephi 5:15, 20:34; Jarom 1:8; Mosiah 11:8.
- Steel: 1 Nephi 4:9, 16:18; 2 Nephi 5:15.
- Asses (donkeys): 1 Nephi 18:25; Mosiah 5:14, 12:5.
- Horses: Alma 18:9; 3 Nephi 3:22 (note that horses were used to pull chariots); 1 Nephi 18:25; Enos 1:21.
- Cattle, cows, oxen: Enos 1:21; 3 Nephi 3:22, 6: 1 Nephi 18:25.
- Pig (sow): 3 Nephi 7:8.
- Grain, wheat: Mosiah 9:9; Helaman 11:17.
- Silk: 1 Nephi 13:7; Alma 1:29.
Archaeologists and the prestigious Smithsonian Institution (letter to John Farkas dated January 26, 1990) say that the Americas (New World) had none of the principle Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog, which the Book of Mormon mentions only once, 3 Nephi 7:8). There were NO horses of any size in the 600 BC to AD 400 period; NO elephants, iron, steel, wheat, barley, oats, millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, donkeys (asses) and silk in the New World during the Book of Mormon time frame. There were traces of items made from meteoric iron/steel, but the technology to make iron and steel was not present. The above listed items did not start to arrive in the New World until the Old World peoples brought them starting roughly in the AD 1500 time period.
Hundreds Of Thousands Die With No Artifacts?
The Book of Mormon has:
He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children....And it came to pass that the army of Coriantumr did pitch their tents by the hill Ramah; and it was that same hill [Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York] where my father Mormon did hide up the records unto the Lord, which were sacred. (Ether 15:2, 11, also see verses 15-30)
These are the pre-Nephite people (the Jaredites) who were just coming to their end with the arrival of the main story-line Book of Mormon people, Lehi and his family as they arrived from Jerusalem in BC 600. The final Jaredite battle allegedly took place on the same Hill Cumorah as the following extermination battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites in AD 385. Other verses have:
And when they had gone through and hewn down all my people save it were twenty and four of us, (among whom was my son Moroni) and we having survived the dead of our people, did behold on the morrow, when the Lamanites had returned unto their camps, from the top of the hill Cumorah, the ten thousand of my people who were hewn down, being led in the front by me. And we also beheld the ten thousand of my people who were led by my son Moroni. And behold, the ten thousand of Gidgiddonah had fallen, and he also in the midst. And Lamah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Gilgal had fallen with his ten thousand; and Limhah had fallen with his ten thousand; and Jeneum had fallen with his ten thousand; and Cumenihah, and Moronihah, and Antionum, and Shiblom, and Shem, and Josh, had fallen with their ten thousand each. And it came to pass that there were ten more who did fall by the sword, with their ten thousand each; yea, even all my people, save it were those twenty and four who were with me, and also a few who had escaped into the south countries, and a few who had deserted over unto the Lamanites, had fallen; and their flesh, and bones, and blood lay upon the face of the earth, being left by the hands of those who slew them to molder upon the land, and to crumble and to return to their mother earth. (Mormon 6:11-15)
And now it came to pass that after the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah, behold, the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the Lamanites, until they were all destroyed. And my father also was killed by them, and I even remain alone to write the sad tale of the destruction of my people. But behold, they are gone, and I fulfil the commandment of my father. And whether they will slay me, I know not. (Mormon 8:2-3)
This is the extermination battle on Hill Cumorah in AD 385 that allegedly killed 240,000 Nephite (This does not include wives and children who were also present; Mormon 6:7.) warriors, and probably the same number of Lamanites, including Zelph. The Book of Ether in the Book of Mormon also related that another great battle took place there hundreds of years earlier, (see Ether 15, part of which is above).
It seems reasonable to expect that items that would not decay easily, such as arrow heads, stone axe heads, copper, silver, and gold items, gold and silver coins (see Alma Chapter 11 heading and 11:4-19) would be found in farming of the land and in excavations at the site. Iron and steel would leave their oxides, that is the rust as they decayed. Also note that in 1834 Joseph Smith claimed to have found the bones of Zelph, a white Lamanite, who was killed in the "last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites" at Hill Cumorah. (History of the Church, June 3, 1834, 2:79-80; Times and Seasons, 6:788.)
So at the very least some bones should also be found. But the reality is no unusual artifacts have ever been found at or around Hill Cumorah. This is the case even though major construction has taken place on and at the base of the hill. A four lane road has been built at the base of Hill Cumorah, a paved road was built to the top of the hill and the visitors center was constructed part way up the hill.
No matter what Mormons may say, there is just no archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon and the Mormon Church has little official information in support of alleged proof.
Additional information on this subject can be found in: How To Rescue Your Loved One From Mormonism, by David A. Reed and John R. Farkas, Baker Book House, 1994, pp. 63-74; Mormonism -Shadow or Reality, by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, pp. 97-125.
John Farkas
Berean Christian Ministries, P.O. Box 1091, Webster, N.Y. 14580
That is why Mormons went about FORGING fake rock carvings of elephants and horses and taking 17th and 18th 19th and 20th century Indian glyphs of such things and passing them as older pre-Columbain art. How could one worship a faith that got such a thing wrong?
Your so-called sources are absolutely WRONG about EVERYTHING they criticize in their great "research". The proof of "Mormonism" (as you call it) is not to be found in archaeology, but in the Spirit of God. I will not cast my pearls before swine.
Just for the record, it strains credulity to think that Joseph Smith, simultaneously attacked as both and idiot and a genius, could get even the general conditions of pre-Columbian America right, let alone hundreds of specific items, which your geniuses have overlooked or refused to acknowledge.
First the general conditions the Book of Mormon mentions:
1. A family and some of their friends (probably less than 50 in total) came to the americas from Jerusalem approx 600 B.C.
2. After about 400 years "on their own" (not really, but practically) they discovered another group from Jerusalem that immigrated at about the same time to the same land, but from a different direction. This group had discovered another culture that had exterminated themselves in a civil war. That group came much earlier--about 2,500 B.C.
3. The later group--calling themselves Nephites--were virtually exterminated approx 421 A.D. by their 1,000 year enemies they called "Lamanites"
Aracheaology Generalities
1. Mesoamerican culture is generally agreed to begin with the Olmecs, who similar to the Book of Mormon claims, appear in the americas about 2,500 B.C, most likely from Asia.
2. The Olmec civilization "disappeared" about 200 B.C., again similar to Book of Mormon claims.
3. Mayan culture got significant "boosts" to its civilization around 600 B.C.--consistent with Book of Mormon claims.
4. There were significant battles among the Mayans in the years 360 A.D. to 450 A.D. where many rulers of Mayan cities were captured, executed, and sacrificed by the victors--consistent with Book of Mormon claims.
Joseph Smith could not have luckily guessed even one of these generalities, yet the Book of Mormon is right on ALL of them.
Specific items from the Book of Mormon:
1. The Nephites and Lamanites built buildings of "cement" (stucco)--obviously verified by current archeaology.
2. The Nephites and Lamanites built paved roads--again confirmed by archaeology.
3. Nephite military leaders fortified their cities with outer moats and inner walls of timbers during the approximate span from 200 B.C. to 400 A.D.--again confirmed by current archaeology.
4. Nephite prophets and scribes recorded that their language was similar to egyptian heiroglyphics and was based upon their "manner of speech" (phonetic). Mayan writing is similar to egyptian heiroglyphs and is a phonetic language.
5. The Nephite record keepers recorded a series of battles between themselves and the "Lamanites" that began in approximately 300 A.D. and culminated in their utter defeat in 421 A.D. In many of these battles the Lamanites caputured their leaders and sacrificed them to their "idol gods" in their "temples". Modern archaeology had discovered a stelae at Uauaxtun (spelling?) near Tikal that commemerates the victory of "Great Jaguar Paw" over an un-named fully bearded rival king in 380 A.D. Great Jaguar Paw sacrificed this king and his family and buried them under one of the temples of Tikal--exactly as the Book of Mormon records.
6. During this last series of battles between 380 to 421 A.D. the Nephite general Mormon records the name of the Lamanite king he was fighting as "Aaron"--not exactly a well known Mayan name to say the least. Archaeologists have recently decifered the phonetic pronunciation of the Mayan conquerer "Great Jaguar Paw" as Yash Nun Ayiin, as close as an english speaking person can come to the modern phonetic equivalent of "Aaron". So not only did Joseph Smith get the name right, he also got the year right. Too much coincidence to be just dumb luck.
7. The great Classic period Mayan ruler Pacal from Palenque who died approximately 800 A.D. traces his ruling geneology to an Olmec king named "Kish" who was born approximately 900 B.C. according to modern archaeologists. The Book of Mormon contains the geneology of the "Jaredite" kings from approximately 2,500 B.C. to 200 B.C. Prominent among those names is a king named Kish, who if you count the generations back from the Book of Mormon list, was born about 900 B.C. Coincidence again? HA!!
There are countless other specific items, ranging from city names, crop and food names, weights and measures, etc., etc., that find similar or exact matches in ancient mesoamerican cultures.
Your claims that "Mormons" forged carvings in central america is ludicrous. I don't think even a single "Mormon" went south of the Mexican border until the late 1800's, and certainly never made it as far as Guatemala or Honduras any sooner than 1940 or later. However, to give you your due about forgeries I agree that many of the so-called discoveries of engraved plates allegedly found in the eastern and mid-western U.S. in the mid 1800's and later appear to be frauds--but many of these were not targeted to the Mormon audience exclusively, but appears to have been a mania indulged in by many unscrupulous americans eager to make a buck from the nearest sucker of any religion.
Having given you that, there is no way that Joseph Smith alone, or in concert with any number of supporting Mormons could have forged the cement buildings, the paved highways, the Mayan king Yash Nun Ayiin, the fortified cities, etc, etc, etc,.
It is no wonder you are as dogmatic as you have been about horses and elephants, which are a mere sideshow in all this, as it is clear if the Mormons are right about any of their claims it pretty much exposes you and the rest of the apostate christians for what you are. You and the PC archaeologists certainly have a vested interest to protect in maintaining your illusion that the Book of Mormon is a fabrication of Joseph Smith. And isn't that what this thread was about in the first place--PC revisionist history?
Smith's view of the pre-Columbian America is well rooted in his time's view of Pre-Columbian history.
Smith in fact is very much like and was greatly inspired by Islam's pseudo prophet Muhamed who also was not very school book educated but had a genius for organizing and preaching and gaining and holding converts.
It is your cross to bear that in your holy book it speaks of horse drawn chariots and elephants and the use of smelted iron tools in pre-Columbia America when such a pre-Columbian America did not exist. But I will not let you and yours try and compensate for you holy book's false history by pushing pseudo history as fact.
Just about every anti-mormon who has a self-interested axe to grind. The ctiticisms of Joseph Smith have always run the gamut from ignoramus to (misguided) genius, and I really don't have a problem with someone who has a different opinion about him and Mormonism than I do, it's just when they go from "...not my cup of tea..." to "...evil, satanic, and must be stopped..." that I must take exception.
There is a big difference between what was easily available from the nomadic and hunter-gatherer tribe's cultures, and the Meso-American cultures. Critics of the Book of Mormon tend to over generalize about what they think the Book of Mormons says, and try to interpret it in terms of Northeast America circa 1800 to explain it. That is where they leap to wrong conclusions and get into trouble.
The theory that the final battle of the Book of Mormon was fought on the New York Hill Cumorah is just one example. There is, and never has been, any official church statement about where the Nephite culture was located. That some church members and leaders have different opinions about where those events occurred does not obligate me or the church to defend seemingly inconsistent arguments about those events based upon faulty opinions.
You presume that not much was known about pre-Coumbian America's in Smith's time.
And I would presume correctly. Not much was known about pre-Columbian america at that time. There was a lot of speculation and theories, one of which was that the Indians were one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and that general theory has been used by eager anti-mormons as one attempt to explain away the Book of Mormon. Digging up arrow heads and potsherds does not qualify as knowledge. The first knowledge of the existence of Mayan ruins was not widely available to the average american until several years after the Book of Mormon was published in 1830. That knowledge was NOT "...well known and wide spread...".
Smith's view of the pre-Columbian America is well rooted in his time's view of Pre-Columbian history.
If his view was so well rooted why was it (and is it) criticized for being so "ridiculous"? You can't have it both ways.
You are WRONG about the Book of Mormon claiming they used "smelted iron tools" in the americas. The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi records that he smelted iron ore while they were still in the Old World, to make tools for building the ship to cross the ocean. Nephi's skills at metallurgy were obviously limited because he could not make new bows of spring steel to replace the broken and worn-out ones they had purchased in Jerusalem. While it would be expected Nephi would pass his metalworking skills onto his descendents, it is not clear from the text of the Book of Mormon those skills lasted more than a few generations as mention of iron and steel tools/weapons become scarce, it not non-existant, as time passes. Your absolutist statment that iron was not used in Mayan culture is again WRONG. There have been discoveries of grave sites where iron oxide residue has been found in pottery, and fine, precision tools made of hardened copper or bronze are commonly found. It should be obvious that it would be extremely difficult for iron or steel instruments to survive for 2,500 years in the humid, wet climate of Central America.
It is your cross to bear that in your holy book it speaks of horse drawn chariots and elephants...
Again, you mis-quote the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon does not say the Lamanite King mentioned in the Book of Alma used a "horse drawn chariot". Horses and chariots are mentioned in the same paragraph, but it does not say the horses pulled the chariot. "Horses" as interpreted by Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon could have been something quite different from the horses Joseph Smith was familiar with. The intent of any translation is to convey the meaning from an unknown language to a known language. A "horse" in the Book of Mormon could have been any four-legged animal larger than a common dog, domesticated for some purpose useful for that culture at that time. As I previously stated, I am not bound to any theory that requires a pre-Columbian horse to be identical to the horses of the Conquistadores. Further, a "chariot" could be any device used for transporting the king, and would not neccessarily require wheels. When we see the word "chariot" we visualize the roman type, because that is what we are familiar with, but a Mayan of 90 B.C. would see something quite different.
It is interesting to note (at least to me, but obviusly not to you and other close-minded critics) that just like with steel and iron, the mention of horses and elephants does not recur in the text of the Book of Mormon at all beyond 90 B.C.--and elephants are only mentioned once around 600 B.C. This is consistent with my theory that if those two animals existed among the Nephites/Mayans (and I believe there is evidence to support that belief) they became extinct within a few hundred years after the Nephite's arrival. The saem can be said for the mention of barley and wheat which the Nephites brought with them from the Old World. It is entirely possible, and indeed probable, that the crops the Nephites brought with them did not survive more than a few years in the different climate and soil conditions of Central America, and explains why we don't hear about wheat and barley in the Book of Mormon's text in later years. There is evidence of barley grains among Mayan grave sites, but it is rare. Far more common in the Book of Mormon is mention of crops with names we don't have english equivalents for, like neas, and sheum, and shim. We do however have an idea that shim is corn. Interestingly, the Book of Mormon mentions a prominent "Hill" where engraved plates were hidden as "The Hill Shim". There is a mountain (hill) in Guatemala the locals call Corn Hill.
While we are on the subject of corn, can you explain how it is that Christ and his disciples are criticized by the Pharisees for picking "corn" on the sabbath in the New Testament, when corn was exclusively a New World crop not even available in the Old World until approximately 1,500 years later? (I assume you subscribe to all the other apostate Christian beliefs including a perfect and complete Bible)
But I will not let you and yours try and compensate for you holy book's false history by pushing pseudo history as fact.
You won't "Let" me? What are you going to do about it you religious fascist? You will certainly have to come up with better arguments than you have, and you will eventually have to open your eyes to the truth contained in the Book of Mormon, as eventually the proof will become overwhelming, even to the most cynical.
Interesting how you have not made a single comment about the specific items in the Book of Mormon corroborated by recent archaeological evidence, but instead childishly switched your arugment to "...well oh yeah!!? What about this....?". That is typical anti-mormon behavior...when cornered change the argument to something else. You are just going to have to get off your PC history/archaeology horse and enter the real world.
Is this the level of scholarship for Mormons? More reason to laugh at the book's claims.
But the Bible wasn't written in English, it was written in Hebrew and Greek. The King James translators couldn't have been eating central american corn long enough for it to have passed into common English usage by the time of the King James translation. This is obviously a biblical error.
Just giving you some of the same logic and standards used against the Book of Mormon.
More reason to laugh at the book's claims.
"Fools mock, but they shall mourn..."
Still nothing to say about what the Book of Mormon got right about Mayan civilization?
Yes it was written in Greek and grain was translated from Greek as the old English way to say it i.e. corn- duh.
"Theories tend to multiply and swarm around the available facts."
Such a perfect comment, and not just for this string. Is it yours? Mind if I memorize it and use it at will?
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