{"id":3751,"date":"2016-04-08T08:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/?p=3751"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:40:02","slug":"3751","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/3751\/","title":{"rendered":"CES Reply: Book of Mormon archaeology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is an excerpt from &#8220;A Reply from a Former CES Employee.&#8221; The entire document can be downloaded for free.<\/p>\n<div class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/CESReply.pdf\" target=\"_self\" class=\"emd_dl_red_darker\" download>Download CES Reply<\/a><\/div>    <style>            \r\n    .emd_dl_red_darker {\r\n        -moz-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        -webkit-box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        box-shadow:inset 0px 1px 0px 0px #f5978e;\r\n        background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #f24537), color-stop(1, #c62d1f) );\r\n        background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #f24537 5%, #c62d1f 100% );\r\n        filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#f24537', endColorstr='#c62d1f');\r\n        background-color:#f24537;\r\n        -webkit-border-top-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-topleft:0px;\r\n        border-top-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-top-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-topright:0px;\r\n        border-top-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-bottomright:0px;\r\n        border-bottom-right-radius:0px;\r\n        -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:0px;\r\n        -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:0px;\r\n        border-bottom-left-radius:0px;\r\n        text-indent:0;\r\n        border:1px solid #d02718;\r\n        display:inline-block;\r\n        color:#ffffff !important;\r\n        font-family:Georgia;\r\n        font-size:15px;\r\n        font-weight:bold;\r\n        font-style:normal;\r\n        height:41px;\r\n        line-height:41px;\r\n        width:200px;\r\n        text-decoration:none;\r\n        text-align:center;\r\n        text-shadow:1px 1px 0px #810e05;\r\n    }\r\n    .emd_dl_red_darker:hover {\r\n        background:-webkit-gradient( linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0.05, #c62d1f), color-stop(1, #f24537) );\r\n        background:-moz-linear-gradient( center top, #c62d1f 5%, #f24537 100% );\r\n        filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#c62d1f', endColorstr='#f24537');\r\n        background-color:#c62d1f;\r\n    }.emd_dl_red_darker:active {\r\n        position:relative;\r\n        top:1px;\r\n    }<\/style>\n<p>This is a line-by-line response to Jeremy Runnells&#8217; &#8220;Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony.&#8221; <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Jeremy&#8217;s words are in green, the color of life<\/span>, while mine are in black, the color of darkness.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">6. \u00a0Archaeology: There is absolutely no archaeological evidence to directly support the Book of Mormon or the Nephites\/Lamanites who numbered in the millions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nephites\/Lamanites \u201cnumbered in the millions?\u201d Not according to the Book of Mormon itself, which only describes the Nephites and Lamanites as numbering in the \u201cthousands\u201d and \u201ctens of thousands.\u201d True, we do get mention of the battle deaths of \u201ctwo millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children\u201d among the Jaredites, who preceded the Lamanites and Nephites in the Americas by thousands of years, and while I don\u2019t dismiss the statistic out of hand, I also don\u2019t see any reason to believe that this is anything more than Coriantumr\u2019s supposition or Moroni\u2019s exaggeration as he abridges the Jaredite record. Neither man would have been capable of conducting an accurate body count. I don\u2019t think it makes the slightest bit of doctrinal difference if two million is fact or hyperbole. And, to beat a dead horse, \u201cif there be faults, they are the mistakes of men.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As to the idea that there \u201cis absolutely no archaeological evidence,\u201d you call to mind a statement by actor John Malkovich, who said the following:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe in people, I believe in humans, I believe in a car, but I don\u2019t believe something I can\u2019t have [sic] absolutely no evidence of for millennia. And it\u2019s funny \u2014 people think analysis or psychiatry is mad, and THEY go to CHURCH\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I find it very tedious that so many atheists keep claiming there is \u201cabsolutely no evidence\u201d of God\u2019s existence, which is false, when what they mean is that there is \u201cabsolutely no <b><i>proof<\/i><\/b>\u201d of God\u2019s existence, which is, in fact, true.<\/p>\n<p>Same with the idea that there is \u201cno evidence\u201d that there were actual people called Nephites and Lamanites who lived and died and did stuff. You may have been watching when, over at<a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/enigmaticmirror\/2015\/07\/23\/jenkins-26-still-no-evidence\/\"> a blog called \u201cEnigmatic Mirror,\u201d<\/a> Mormon scholar William Hamblin was exchanging posts with a non-Mormon academic named Philip Jenkins, who likens belief in the Book of Mormon as a historical, non-fictional document to belief in Bigfoot \u2013 who we all know is <a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/p3QaQi-h0\">Cain, punished to wander the earth swathed in\u00a0matted, unbleached Donald Trump combover strands\u00a0for thousands of years until he finally guest stars as Andre the Giant on The Six Million Dollar Man.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I digress.<\/p>\n<p>Jenkins refuses to either read the Book of Mormon or even acknowledge that there is any reason to do so, because there is \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 \u201cno evidence\u201d that it\u2019s historical. When Hamblin cites evidence and suggests that Jenkins has \u201ctacitly\u201d admitted that at least some evidence exists, Jenkins gets quite huffy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt no point have I ever suggested that there is any evidence whatever in support for the historicity or historical value of the Book of Mormon,\u201d Jenkins\u00a0huffs, huffily. \u201cI have never suggested or stated that tacitly, or openly, and it is wrong to suggest that I have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But there is a great deal of evidence of the Book of Mormon\u2019s historicity, much of which I\u2019ve <a href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/17\/leap-of-faith\/\">talked about on my blog<\/a>. What Jenkins is complaining about, like Malkovich, and like you, is the lack of <i>proof<\/i>, not evidence. (Hamblin himself makes the same point in his response to Jenkins.)<\/p>\n<p>Just to cite perhaps the most compelling example, Nahom is archaeological evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient record. Is it proof? By no means. But the fact that a verifiable real-world burial site shows up in precisely the place the B of M said it should be, and that it did so decades after Joseph Smith could have known it was there? That\u2019s not nothing, and it should not be lightly dismissed. Certainly it\u2019s much more than \u201cno evidence.\u201d Critics have explanations for Nahom, of course, just as apologists have explanations for evidence against the Book of Mormon, which also exists. But it\u2019s wrong to say that no proof is the same as no evidence.<\/p>\n<p>After all, if evidence were always proof, then why would we have a criminal justice system? Jury trials involve two opposing advocates\u00a0using\u00a0identical evidence to argue for diametrically\u00a0opposite conclusions. Even the most devoutly religious concede there is no conclusive proof that God exists, but they\u2019ll offer up a great deal of evidence for why they believe he does. \u00a0But if the intellectually lazy can equate a lack of proof with a lack of evidence, then they\u00a0can end all arguments before they begin.<\/p>\n<p>Your use of the word \u201cdirectly\u201d is also a qualifier that ought to be called into question. By stating that there is no archaeological evidence to \u201cdirectly support\u201d the Book of Mormon, you tacitly admit that there is evidence that could \u201cindirectly support\u201d the Book of Mormon. And what would \u201cdirect evidence\u201d look like? A sign saying \u201cWelcome to Zarahemla?\u201d What makes you think that the name \u201cZarahemla\u201d would be written or pronounced in characters that any modern archaeologist would be able to recognize? Would you prefer graffiti on an ancient American bathroom that says \u201cFor a good time, call Zoram, servant of Laban, now traveling with the family of Nephi?\u201d Well over 99% of the names of people and places of ancient Americans are completely lost to us. The fact that there is even any indirect evidence that could be applied to the Book of Mormon is remarkable in and of itself.<\/p>\n<p>If you only accept events that have \u201cdirect\u201d archaeological evidence to back them up, you not only have to write off almost all of the Bible, but just about all of the ancient world, most of which left little or no archaeological footprint.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">This is one of the reasons why unofficial apologists are coming up with the Limited Geography Model (it happened in Central or South America) and that the real Hill Cumorah is not in Palmyra, New York but is elsewhere and possibly somewhere down there instead. This is in direct contradiction to what Joseph Smith and other prophets have taught.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Even a cursory reading of the Book of Mormon makes it clear that the Hill Cumorah isn\u2019t the hill in upstate New York where Joseph got the plates. In Mormon 6:6, Mormon states that he \u201chid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, <i>save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.\u201d <\/i>[Emphasis added.] So the plates Moroni had after the massive bloody battle at Cumorah were specifically not plates that had been buried there. Moroni then spends decades wandering with these plates, presumably getting as far away from Cumorah as possible, and then buries them up for Joseph to find in an area far removed from the Cumoran carnage.<\/p>\n<p>You need more than a cursory reading of the Book of Mormon to realize that the hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon, in which most of the prophets, apostles, and members of the church widely believed and many still believe, can\u2019t be sustained by the text. But a close reading reveals a consistent geography that could only have taken place over a relatively limited geographical area. The research on this subject is really quite compelling \u2013 John Sorenson\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mormons-Codex-Ancient-American-Book-ebook\/dp\/B00F64T8SA\">\u201cMormon\u2019s Codex\u201d<\/a> is an astonishing work of impeccable scholarship that reviews a massive amount of internal and external evidence for the Book of Mormon\u2019s authenticity\u2013 and it would be quite ignorant to dismiss it out of hand.<\/p>\n<p>Now is it true that most \u2013 but not all &#8211; prophets, apostles, and members long believed, and many still believe, both in the New York Cumorah and the hemispheric geographic model? Yes. Absolutely. And is it true that in many cases, the new consensus on these issues is \u201cin direct contradiction to what Joseph Smith and other prophets have taught?\u201d It is.<\/p>\n<p>So what?<\/p>\n<p>We keep coming back to infallibility and the lack thereof, and so many of your objections are rooted in the idea that if even apostles make mistakes like this, the Church can\u2019t be true. That\u2019s not just wrong; it\u2019s bad doctrine. Mormons ought to realize that agency trumps infallibility every single time. In the absence of direct revelation, speculation fills the gaps. There is no direct revelation about the specific whereabouts of any Book of Mormon location, so Joseph Smith and others were and are perfectly capable of acting in good faith and still reaching incorrect conclusions, which seems to be precisely what they did. Like it or not, that\u2019s how agency works. That\u2019s mortality. That\u2019s life, in and out of the Church.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Never mind that the Church has a visitor\u2019s center there in New York and holds annual Hill Cumorah pageants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And why shouldn\u2019t they? Even if it\u2019s not the hill where the final Nephite battle took place, it\u2019s still the hill where Joseph got the plates, so it\u2019s quite significant to Book of Mormon history. The fact that they still call it \u201cCumorah\u201d is, in my mind, unfortunate as it perpetuates a cultural mistake, but I don\u2019t see how it has even the slightest impact on the Book of Mormon\u2019s authenticity.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">We read about two major war battles that took place at the Hill Cumorah (Ramah to the Jaredites) that numbered in the deaths of at least 2,000,000 people. No bones, hair, chariots, swords, armor, or any other evidence found whatsoever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>None in upstate New York, no, which is not at all surprising, as the Book of Mormon itself makes it crystal clear that that\u2019s not where either Cumorah or Ramah actually was.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Compare this to the Roman occupation of Britain and other countries. There are abundant evidences of their presence during the first 400 years AD such as villas, mosaic floors, public baths, armor, weapons, writings, art, pottery and so on. Even the major road systems used today in some of these occupied countries were built by the Romans. Additionally, there is ample evidence of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations as well as a civilization in current day Texas that dates back 15,000 years. Where are the Nephite or Lamanite buildings, roads, armors, swords, pottery, art, etc.?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Where indeed? What would Nephite buildings, roads, armors, swords, pottery, art, etc. look like?<\/p>\n<p>You do realize that the Mayan and Aztec civilizations didn\u2019t label themselves as such, right? Those titles represent transliterations of ancient pronunciation and symbols that, back when these civilizations were flourishing, probably bore no resemblance to how we reference them in modern English.<\/p>\n<p>Archaeology is a process of piecing together the history of civilizations from a relative handful of table scraps. What would be the difference, for instance, between a Mayan bowl or a Nephite bowl? What would distinguish a Lamanite brick from an Aztec brick? How many Mayan roads, armors, or swords say \u201cProperty of the Mayan\u201d on them? Odds are overwhelming that any cultural impact of a Nephite, Lamanite, or Jaredite civilization would be impossible to verify based on examining ancient artifacts, regardless of how many may have survived.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Latter-day Saint Thomas Stuart Ferguson was BYU\u2019s archaeology division (New World Archaeological Funding) founder. NWAF was financed by the Church. NWAF and Ferguson were tasked by BYU and the Church in the 1950s and 1960s to find archaeological evidence to support the Book of Mormon. This is what Ferguson wrote after 17 years of trying to dig up evidence for the Book of Mormon:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">\u201c&#8230;you can\u2019t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere \u2013 because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. I should say \u2013 what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">\u2013 Letter dated February 2, 1976<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Never heard of Thomas Stuart Ferguson before reading your letter, although I\u2019m sorry he lost his faith. From what I can gather online, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/New_World_Archaeological_Foundation\">he founded a private organization that BYU later decided to fund<\/a>, and Ferguson\u2019s primary role with the NWAF at that point was fundraising, not analysis or field work. He was a lawyer by trade, not a trained archaeologist, anthropologist, or geologist &#8211; an amateur, not an academic &#8211; and he\u2019s at least as \u201cunofficial\u201d in his criticism as the apologists you so readily deride.<\/p>\n<p>Your argument is pretty weak if he\u2019s the best witness you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n<p><em>Tomorrow: Book of Mormon geography\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thisis an excerpt from \"A Reply from a Former CES Employee.\" The entire document can be downloaded for free.This is a line-by-line response to Jeremy Runnells' \"Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony.\" <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Jeremy's words are in green, the color of life<\/span>, while mine are in black, the color of darkness. ... <a title=\"CES Reply: Book of Mormon archaeology\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/3751\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about CES Reply: Book of Mormon archaeology\">Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5145,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions\/5145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}