Book of Mormon parallels to 1800s thought

Book of Mor­mon par­al­lels to 1800s thought Richard Bush­man, well-known Mor­mon his­to­ri­an, recent­ly stat­ed: … there is phras­ing everywhere–long phras­es that if you google them you will find them in 19th cen­tu­ry writ­ings. The the­ol­o­gy of the Book of Mor­mon is very much 19th cen­tu­ry the­ol­o­gy, and it reads like a 19th cen­tu­ry under­stand­ing of…

Read More

Questions to Ask

Intro­duc­tion These ques­tions are designed to probe var­i­ous aspects of the LDS Church’s his­to­ry and truth-claims.1 The list was made for 1) inves­ti­ga­tors to ask the mis­sion­ar­ies, 2) active mem­bers to ask them­selves, or 3) those expe­ri­enc­ing a faith tran­si­tion to ask their par­ents or eccle­si­as­ti­cal lead­ers. The major­i­ty of links pro­vid­ed are to LDS…

Read More

Swords and Spears

Swords and Spears For over a decade I’ve been hung up on the dearth of phys­i­cal evi­dence, par­tic­u­lar­ly Iron Age arti­facts, sup­port­ing the Book of Mor­mon. Recent­ly I had a mini-enlight­en­­ment in this regard: swords and spears do not grow on trees; they do nor fall as man­na from Heav­en. They are made, by men. With­out pretending…

Read More

Issues and Questions Regarding LDS Doctrine and History

Four­teen years down the road, the ques­tions and issues raised in this let­ter remain sub­stan­tial­ly unan­swered, to my knowl­edge unad­dressed, by The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints. August 30, 2003 153 Canemah Way Ore­gon City, OR 97045 Pres­i­dent Gor­don B. Hinck­ley The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat­ter Day Saints 50 East North Temple…

Read More

Problem Summaries: resources discussing LDS-truth claims

Prob­lems with LDS truth-claims Before read­ing about the prob­lems, you may want to first con­sid­er the pros and cons of inves­ti­gat­ing the truth-claim data. Very short sum­maries Five Key Facts (~ 1 page) 50 Prob­lems with the Mor­mon Church (~10 minute youtube video) More sig­nif­i­cant sum­maries Mor­mon Primer (mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives: main­stream, crit­i­cal, apolo­getic, and pro­gres­sive) Let­ter For…

Read More

Five Key Facts

This is a very short sum­ma­ry of what I view as the 5 most impor­tant facts in under­stand­ing alter­na­tive mod­els for LDS truth claims. To the best of my knowl­edge, every point made in this doc­u­ment is accept­ed as fac­tu­al by both LDS and non-LDS schol­ars (please cor­rect me if I am mis­tak­en and I…

Read More

Understanding Book of Mormon Geography

It has become appar­ent to me that the rea­son why it has been impos­si­ble to pin loca­tions for the Book of Mor­mon till now is because the Book of Mor­mon men­tions six seas and the nar­row pas­sage and nar­row neck are two sep­a­rate geo­graph­ic fea­tures. The nar­row pas­sage is not between the east sea or…

Read More

Archeological Evidence of the Fortified cities by the East Sea

Arche­o­log­i­cal Evi­dence of the For­ti­fied Cities by the East Sea This evi­dence is based on the Six Sea Mod­el http://​bookof​mor​monev​i​dence​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​0​9​/​a​l​m​a​—​c​h​a​p​t​e​r​—​2​2​—​b​o​m​—​m​a​p.html I will be using the Hopewell mound for­ti­fi­ca­tions found in New York State and Penn­syl­va­nia for arche­o­log­i­cal evi­dence for the for­ti­fi­ca­tions described in Alma Chap­ter 50 and refor­ti­fied in Alma Chap­ter 52. E.G Sqi­uer and Charles Whit­ney described…

Read More

X2A’J Bible and Book of Mormon DNA

DNA mark­er x2a’j is prob­a­bly the great­est DNA evi­dence for the Book of Mor­mon thus far. X2a’j is not found in North Amer­i­ca but its impor­tance to Native Amer­i­can DNA is vir­tu­al­ly unknown. It’s the 5‑ton ele­phant in the room that researcher’s geneti­cist do not want to talk about. Out­side of the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent it’s the…

Read More