Recovery to Mormonism

Are Technological Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon?

Did Joseph Smith mess up?  He did, after all, know nothing about early American cultures.  Did he assume they had things that they’d have no way of having?  Be they certain animals or certain weapons?  Curiously, the more that archeologists know about Mesoamerica, and the ancient world in general, the more plausible the Book of Mormon’s “errors” become.  “Recovery to Mormonism” sites might present the Book of Mormon as a weak fraud—but to have this much “good luck” in pinpointing early American cultural mores is rather hopeful.

We don’t have all the answers.  We don’t know everything there is to know about Israelite society, and we know even less about Nephite and Lamanite cultures.  We don’t know that they had anything to do with the Mayan or the Aztec cultures.  An ex-Mormon or anti-Mormon might happily point out that none of these points prove the Book of Mormon—indeed, they don’t.  Proof isn’t the issue.  But they do point out that the Mesoamerican culture, for one, was fairly advanced and that certain apparently “set” issues are more complex than they look.  What something is called may not always be, for example, what it would be by definition.  And the absence of proof is not, in itself, a proof that something is false.

Laban (in Jerusalem) had a steel sword?  Wasn’t steel unknown in 600 B.C.?  Actually, blacksmiths were already “steeling” iron—which is to say, forcing carbon into the iron to make it stronger.  (Steel is an alloy of carbon and iron.)  These type of swords have been discovered by archeologists, both dating to Lehi’s time and even earlier.

Later Nephite swords may have been something like the macuahuitl, a long shaft with sharp obsidian flakes fixed into the edges, which were terrifyingly effective weapons.   When Spaniards observed this weapon in action (used by the Aztecs), they called it a sword, themselves.  The Aztecs also used a weapon with a curved blade, something like a scimitar, a weapon mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon people used cement?  The American peoples were actually very advanced in the use of cement.  Although the first samples we have of Mesoamerican cement work come from the first century A.D., these samples are extremely sophisticated, comparable to the cementwork of the Greeks and Romans of the same time period.

Barley wasn’t in the New World until modern times.  Why does the Book of Mormon mention it?  Preserved grains of what is, to all appearances, barley, has been discovered in sites in Arizona, Illinois, and Oklahoma. 1

What about all the Old World animals in the Book of Mormon?  Horse?  Elephant?  There is, in fact, some evidence for some of the stranger animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon.  (In fact, in the case of elephants, we have strong evidence that they were in the New World as late as 3000 B.C. and quite possibly later, which may well have coincided with Jaredite culture—which came far earlier than the Nephite culture and their accounts are those that mention elephants.)  We may also note that people call animals by names they might already be familiar with.  Native Americans called horses “deer” when they first ran across them.  A large amount of people still call panda “bears,” although they most certainly are not.  There is no reason why the Nephites would not have used words they already had to identify domesticated animals that served similar purposes to animals they already had words for. 2

There’s no evidence of tents being used in Mesoamerica!  There’s also minimal evidence that tents were used in ancient Israel, but the Bible mentions them frequently.  There is recorded evidence that the Atzecs used tents made of woven grass—these, perhaps unsurprisingly, have not survived to be found.

What about armor?  Evidence!  We actually know that Mayans used armor—definitely not the heavy iron or steel we associate with the Old World.  Think lighter materials such as shell, bone, wood, or leather.

How could Lamoni have a chariot if early Americans didn’t have the wheel?  We don’t actually know that all early Americans didn’t have the wheel—wheeled figurines and potter’s wheels have been discovered, actually.  If Nephites and Lamanites had chariots like we think of chariots (and, indeed, these may have been something similar, but different), there is every reason to believe these would not have survived to be found.  There is no evidence of chariots in the Holy Land, but the Bible mentions them pretty frequently. 3

1. Right on Target: Boomerang Hits in the Book of Mormon (Matthew Roper)

2. Book of Mormon anachronisms: Animals (Fairwiki)

3. Book of Mormon anachronisms: Warfare (Michael R. Ash)