Category: Series

  • Tribe of Manasseh — Conclusion and Sources

    Tribe of Manasseh — Conclusion and Sources

    Dave Mack

    Final Thoughts I have spent the last two years gath­er­ing evi­dence for this doc­u­ment. It has been frus­trat­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing all at the same time. There are peo­ple I need to thank, includ­ing Wayne May and Rod Mel­drum. I also thank Wes Trexler for help­ing review and edit this material.…

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  • Tribe of Manasseh — Geography Map and Supporting Verses

    Tribe of Manasseh — Geography Map and Supporting Verses

    Dave Mack

    Verses and Geography supporting the North American model There are two places that we know for sure were the Book of Mor­mon took place that would be the Hill Cumorah and Zara­hem­la found across from Nau­voo (D&C 125:3). Based on were the Hill Cumorah is we can know where the…

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  • Tribe of Manasseh — Hebrew and Native American Ties

    Tribe of Manasseh — Hebrew and Native American Ties

    Dave Mack

    Native American Hebrew and Greek language comparisons There are exam­ples of Hebrew cus­toms, char­ac­ters, beliefs and lan­guage among Native Amer­i­cans. Accord­ing to Mor­mon, they knew how to write in Hebrew and of course had Hebrew cus­toms and beliefs (Mor­mon 9:33). The Greek lan­guage is also com­pared to the Native Amer­i­can…

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  • Tribe of Manasseh — Technology and Animals

    Tribe of Manasseh — Technology and Animals

    Dave Mack

    Metallurgy Hopewell gold, sil­ver, cop­per, and mete­oric iron arti­facts have been ver­i­fied by mod­ern day arche­ol­o­gist. List­ed below are pic­tures of con­firmed Hopewell arti­facts and accounts of ear­ly settlers. “Ornate plates or sheets of cop­per (Fig­ure 7), as well as effi­gies, head­dress­es (Fig­ure 8), bracelets, and rings were found in…

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  • Tribe of Manasseh — Native American DNA

    Tribe of Manasseh — Native American DNA

    Dave Mack

    DNA Hap­logroup X a Mid­dle East and Euro­pean DNA mark­er found in North America Hap­logroup X in DNA dis­tri­b­u­tion match­es Hopewell and Book of Mor­mon migra­tion, expanse and trade system Leg­end of Fu Sang Chi­nese knowl­edge of the North Amer­i­can continent Hap­logroups A, B, C, D, and X are found…

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  • Tribe of Manasseh — North American Nephite Model

    Tribe of Manasseh — North American Nephite Model

    Dave Mack

    I have always loved apologetics. I enjoy discussing doctrine, scriptural versus and evidence that support or are seen as evidence against the Book of Mormon or LDS church. For that reason I have studied the most common complaints and evidence for and against the church.

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 13 — Testimony, Truth, and the Holy Ghost

    Leaving the Church, Part 13 — Testimony, Truth, and the Holy Ghost

    Eric Nelson

    1. Back­ground: Despite my doubts and con­cerns about var­i­ous aspects of LDS doc­trine and his­to­ry, I remained in the Church for sev­er­al years due to the spir­i­tu­al and uplift­ing expe­ri­ences I enjoyed as a mem­ber. But those spir­i­tu­al feel­ings and emo­tions have also been a mat­ter of study and inspection.…

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 12 — Miscellaneous Concerns

    Leaving the Church, Part 12 — Miscellaneous Concerns

    Eric Nelson

    There are many aspects of Mor­mon the­ol­o­gy that can be sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly dis­proven. More­over, some LDS teach­ings lack plau­si­bil­i­ty while oth­ers are sim­ply bizarre. The fol­low­ing are sev­er­al examples. 1. Death Pri­or to the Fall: 2 Nephi 2:22 and Alma 12:23–24 state there was no death of any kind (humans, ani­mals,…

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 11 — Temples & Freemasonry

    Leaving the Church, Part 11 — Temples & Freemasonry

    Eric Nelson

    1. Intro­duc­tion: Out of respect to believ­ing mem­bers, I will not lay out all of my con­cerns with the LDS tem­ple cer­e­mo­ny. How­ev­er, there are cer­tain aspects of the tem­ple that are spo­ken about pub­li­cal­ly by Church lead­ers that are worth dis­cussing in more detail. 2. Sim­i­lar­i­ties between LDS Tem­ple Cer­e­monies…

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 10 — Prophets

    Leaving the Church, Part 10 — Prophets

    Eric Nelson

    1. Overview: Church mem­bers are taught that the prophet speaks for the Lord and will nev­er lead the church astray (even when they are wrong). Pres­i­dent Heber J. Grant said: “Always keep your eye on the Pres­i­dent of the church, and if he ever tells you to do any­thing, even…

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 9 — Book of Mormon Witnesses

    Leaving the Church, Part 9 — Book of Mormon Witnesses

    Eric Nelson

    1. Overview: The tes­ti­mo­ny of the three and eight wit­ness­es to the gold plates is often con­sid­ered a key com­po­nent of the Book of Mormon’s cred­i­bil­i­ty. How­ev­er, the wit­ness­es, by their own admis­sion, seemed to have only seen the angel and plates in a vision­ary state in their minds (as…

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  • Leaving the Church, Part 8 — Polygamy and Polyandry

    Leaving the Church, Part 8 — Polygamy and Polyandry

    Eric Nelson

    1. Back­ground: The LDS Church pub­lished an essay, Plur­al Mar­riage in Kirt­land and Nau­voo, on Octo­ber 22, 2014, dis­cussing its polyg­a­mist past. The essay admit­ted the fol­low­ing, which will be dis­cussed in fur­ther depth dur­ing the remain­der of this sec­tion: (1) Joseph mar­ried girls as young as 14; (2) Joseph…

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