Mormon Stories #907: Dr. Michael Coe - LiDAR, Response to John Sorenson, & the Book of Mormon Pt. 3

would you would you not pursue an avenue of research because you would be worried that it would substantiate a religious claim would you restraint would you like let's say there was an interesting question like oh we found all these metal objects oops I'm worried that John Sorensen and the Book of Mormon people will be confirmed if I pursue this research so I'm not going to pursue the research because I'm concerned that it might ballad eight the Book of Mormon would you would you think that way no I wouldn't even consider such a question I mean as I say I'm dedicated to the truth scientifically and it's secular truth it's got nothing to do with the religion okay regarding horse bones he makes the argument that that basically horse bones have been found in deep layers of the waterhole at my upon Yucatan raisin ooh and an issue that Mercer and hat had earlier noted with their finds of horse bones in Yucatan caves what so basically the question well I'll tell you there are horse bones in loltun cave the only problem for John is that they're older than 8,000 BC their horses are native to North America horses evolved here and then when the very land bridges formed even earlier they they moved into Asia so there were there were horses here but they were all killed off about as I say ten thousand years ago they were gone and the ones that little turn came and you've got that belong to these early horizon they were probably hunted by the by the first Native Indians who all right yes but it's got nothing to do with what with Nephites or with the - city I mean this infinitely earlier so he's quoting horse bone artifacts that were from dates thousands and thousands of years before the Book of Mormon claims well I haven't read that mercer article he did write something called Hills case of you Pathan I have read that and I suspect those are horses but you know there's a lot of Pleistocene period Ice Age for it stuff from the Yucatan cave and that's what he's talking about he says it was not really a great article under that any was just there to write this thing out Sorensen writes that the matter was compounded by Peter Schmitz 1988 work in loft and cave that found dead horse that found horse bones scattered through a number of layers of early pottery bearing debris he observed quote something went on here that is still difficult to excite don't believe they just read it though going I think they need to think that afternoon alright there are also further evidences for pre 1580 dates of other horse bones including three radiocarbon dated finds from North America this like the metals is an unfinished archaeological story so basically Sorensen's telling us that horse bones have been found and that that means the the question of whether there were horses in in Book of Mormon time period is an unanswered question that still needs more evidence he's kind of creating in us the impression that there's a reason to still believing and to still believe that what would your was always looking for some little scrap that will refute the secular myself but I'd have to see the evidence on this okay this is wishful thinking Chinese for then he asked the question what is a horse so this is another thing where basically modern Mormon just basically say that when Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon or more like Spencer lumen says when Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon as a revelation where the plates weren't even really involved he would even though we're told that he would look at a stone that would tell us the words tell him the words and then he would write down those words as the stone appeared now Mormon apologists are saying that Joseph Smith the plates were just there to kind of inspire him to channel revelation from God that really didn't everything do it the plates but then he would have the image in his mind of an animal that he was not familiar with and so he would put the horse label on it when in reality it wasn't a horse and so John Sorensen writes what is a horse another possibility is that some other species was counted as a horse so for example upon seeing Spanish horses the Aztecs referred to them as the deer that people right now and there are artistic representations of writers on deers so he's basically saying even though the Book of Mormon mentions horses what if Joseph Smith just put in the word horse because he didn't have a word for what these animals really were I think you should have put in deer or there's other species that you know we're we're used that made Joseph Smith think horse when really they were other types of animal species I think John should have been a Talmudic scholar you know hundreds maybe it's over a thousand years arguing about the meaning of certain words well where does a horse not a horse I just that's a hopeless argument really and I just want to I just yeah just trying to put the best possible explanation what really doesn't need an explanation about isn't it about plausible than I they just want to create enough doubt in the minds of a believer about your evidence yeah so that they can say well it's it's an unanswered question yet we don't know yet maybe it's possible isn't that kind of what they're doing I'm reminded of this lovest you know we're coming up there they're trying to tell us that we should I want that back too you know 7th century or something you know that it's all there and if you know what's in the holy book has to be explained explain explain you don't have to do this with the Bible because a lot of it is really that's not workable but you can start explaining these things forever there and saying that well we don't know because they haven't found it well you can say that about anything as I say you know they haven't found atomic reactors in Chicago yet we haven't dug the whole site who knows and that's and that's a challenge that another challenge I have with modern Mormon apologetics they want to redefine words to the point where words have no more meaning that's right and whether it's translation even though Joseph's claim to translate reformed Egyptian into the Book of Abraham he claimed to translate the Book of Mormon you know from reformed Egyptian into the current text we have we have an entire day long apologetic workshop with Richard Bushman Terrell Gibbons you know Jenna Reese you know Patrick Mason and other scholars who are trying to redefine what the word translation means and they spend a whole day on it trying to talk about how translation does it mean translation what it really means is revelation and that's how we're able to sort of still hold on clinging to a belief in a historical book of Mormon or in a book of Abraham because really when Joseph Smith said translation he meant revelation and so the scroll and the plates were just used to inspire Joseph to then get a direct revelation from God you know when really it wasn't a translation even though Joseph called it a translation at some point it becomes a little Serg such a colossal waste of time you know I'm not about to sit down and then I'll go over each one of her John's objections because you know I just don't have the time to do this it's just I mean Jonathan intelligent well-educated guy there's a reason he got a PhD but to spend so much of your life doing something like this is sort of tragic that's a big waste of time to be something you could be you know doing something positive about Malaya and Maya archaeology instead of sitting and over and over going over the same stop again and it's just pathetic because it's not but it's to me it just strikes me that there are there are other more important things to do in this world than that he challenges your statement that the that the Nephites were highly civilized people by basically saying by the time they traveled from the old world to America they became so Haggard and dee culture ated and frazzled that we shouldn't expect the Nephites to have been highly civilized people it's a civilization out of them perfectly good I've never heard this ok so we have lots of accounts of Laura voyages that people have made like captain Bligh's 3,000 mile journey after the after the mutineers thought them and other people in apart but they never ended up like that last time I went through a list of all the domesticated animals that the Book of Mormon includes cows axes ass horse goat and wild goat that's from first Nephi 1825 has anything changed in the field of mezzo mare in archaeology to where you're finding cows oxes donkeys horses goats and wild goats never been found you know what there's big meetings of the Society for American Archaeology coming up in in Washington I think it's next month I'm not going on which invited to give a talk there but if you look at the list of people that are presenting stuff at that conference there's as I said there's several thousand active archaeologists are gonna show up these are people who work at new world archaeology including Mesoamerica and they've been at it for years we're which one of them has ever dug up a cow bone in Africa love the inside they don't exist he says the domesticated barley was discovered so I guess the Book of Mormon mentions barley or grains or something of that nature you think barley or barley yeah barley never been found so he's saying domesticated barley was discovered in archaeological sites in Arizona and missed Western Midwestern states 25 years ago so it could have grown in Mexico - okay so swords and shields he's basically saying when the Book of Mormon mentions swords it it means likely obsidian swords so when all the hundreds of thousands of soldiers were we're at battle with each other maybe it wasn't metal swords maybe make good swords in the first place it's a glass and it shatters you're trying to use it as a sword that's hopefully John's got it completely wrong there do you know the only Tori of domestic animals there's only been one old-world domestic animal found archaeologically that I know of in a new world silent and that is on the north coast of Chile and one particular site that dates to about 1400 AD it's free column then there's no doubt about that or freeze banished and there are chicken wounds there and they've run DNA on those chicken runs it's definitely there and we know from the documents that the Inka knew about chickens in Cusco in the capital and they have documented this it's radiocarbon dated and they have run the DNA on these chicken boats and their Polynesian chickens one race of the domestic chicken was raised in Polynesia and take it with them on their voyages everywhere you know which something they did so certainly it was introduced by following Asians we know that they were in contact with it within the world certainly with the coast of furrowing gla more than once and they took with them a new world domesticate back into the Pacific which it's a sweet potato and there's all kinds of linguistic and other evidence to back that up but these are great Polynesian navigators there's definite you know I'm like all this book of Mormon stuff there's real archaeological evidence for this that stands up to scientists I just haven't seen anything coming across the Atlantic like this um penny penny is asking is it possible I don't even know that you would be able to answer this but she's saying isn't it possible the Book of Mormon took place in North America or South America or even Polynesia and Central America I repeat that one it's just impossible the Book of Mormon took place in North America or South America this place if somewheres outside of Central America event yes that's basically what now you're looking for a place to flip the Book of Mormon and then which doesn't exist so it's plausible I mean if you believe this is a true text so this really is describing something factual but you know look for a place that it might have occurred in but I can't think of any I mean I mean and Smith himself having read Stevens and Catherwood that's it that's the place yes era have went down there with lot of people that John Lloyd Stephens historically about Kim wants to know if an archaeological stone for translating has ever been found in any archaeological sites no well wait a second what bridge is the problem about cracking ancient scripts and most ancient scripts that have been deciphered rely on the presence of a bilingual text the perfect example is the Rosetta Stone which has Egyptian hieroglyphic an Egyptian way of writing fast and Greek and its final evil that is ancient Egyptian and Greek and that's what got chef polio and other early Egyptian deciphers going and so we're always looking for a fine lingual stone actually we've got a bilingual from Maya and that was what Bishop London wrote down he had a native Noble as his informant he was trying to find out you know how words are right how did their writing work there was that they have an ABC just about what and so this guy they Tim wrote down hieroglyphs for each sound which London mistakenly thought was an alphabet it's actually a syllabary but that makes it that now bilingual in Maya and Spanish and but there are ancient scripts that you cannot crack if they don't have a bilingual I mean there's this two inmates of America alone that can't be cracked because we have known bilingual and there are some in the old world like and along the Indus River and what's now Pakistan the a lot of inscriptions from there and the Indus script and we cannot read it because we never found a bilingual so if that's what she's talking about you know a stone with two writing systems on it that's an interesting question all right thank you cam Turner for that question we love you cam she's on our board of directors and she's awesome so one of the things that that John Sorensen was a little bit hard on oh he basically claims that there have been a lot of shields found basically what does he say about about shields he says a large variety of shields is known to have been used by Mesoamerican warriors from pre-classic times onward but how much they never mentioned the Book of Mormon our shields are you finding a lot of shields yeah but they're not made out of bronze or metal I'm being there no shields go way back yes I mean character walk on which these guys who actually contract I hope in Maya area they use shields and then why has had shields I had several kinds so shields are okay just not metal yeah well they're not metal okay one of the things that many of us mistaken some people are asking about coins one of the apologetic responses that I'm familiar with is that the Book of Mormon text doesn't actually mention coins it mentions currency of some sort that it was the heading that mentions coins and the heading was written by like Bruce our McConkey or whoever it was the wrote the chapter headings so it's you know apologists have told us we shouldn't expect necessarily to find you know Mesoamerican coins because the text doesn't require us to find that but it does require us to have currency do you is there evidence of currency cocoa cocoa beans or whatever cocoa beans chocolate veins okay we talked about their first they were they were used for minor transactions not for the really big ones you know we have the Aztec tribute lists two versions of them because it's fans wanted to see what they could get out of these people so they grabbed their tribute lists you know which were in manuscript on deerskin and the big the amount of stuff that was demanded by the Empire in the way of taxation and tribute from its provinces it's all listed there province by province by province but they had their own number system for recording that but they don't mention chocolate beans and said something that had to come in by tribute but we do know from the Spanish sources that in the marketplace for minor transactions you're wanting to buy a chicken I don't want that chicken you wanted to buy it let's say a turkey or a dog or something like that you could pay and chocolate bags which were worth a lot because they did not come from Aztec country they came from the to land tropics from the Maya area from the Gulf Coast and had to be rolled in on the facts of Porter's up to up to Mexico City after Tenochtitlan like the capital but it was just for minor transaction you know if you wanted to buy you know a dish to grind male you you might be able to pay with chocolate things there but it's not a national currency has has have golden plates or metal plates with engravings on them ever been found in the history of Mesoamerica no period okay so another another one that we talked about was silk and now he says the Spaniards described at least five Mesoamerican varieties of what they termed quote silk cords equivalent none of them used the species of silkworm that prevailed in East Asia so he's saying Spanish described varieties of material that they termed silk or its equivalent well he tried to get this stuff out of a yeah no no he's saying that Spaniards said they found five different varieties of materials that they refer to as silk just that it was silk like material but it the thing is with the Maya for instance there's no preservation whatsoever of things like clothing anything that it's organic is gone because of the tropical there it disintegrates fat and the Spaniards always described the Maya readings in superlatives they'd never seen anything that good and I thought they thought a lot more of that than the Spaniards did of say Peruvian babies which we have a lot of because of a big desert environment and which they found so apparently they they had cotton weavings that were were that fun really but this is salt silk is not native to the Near East or or to Europe is of course native to Asia there was the silkworm technology came right out of China so John is arguing for Asiatic influence I'm not to refute that as he knows we've correspondent about the yeah I think he's saying silk like materials that Joseph Smith or Parata okay chariots zero he's he's basically saying but so his answer is it may be the the it says it may be the chariots had never been found but the meaning of chariots mentioned in the Book of Mormon text remains mysterious they are mentioned only on two occasions and very limited geographical areas in connection with horses and by the way no chariot has ever been excavated in Palestine despite documentary statements implying that there were very numerous so how about that dr. Michael Koh we've never found you know Judah ben-hur chariot so that's so if we haven't found Ben Hur serious yeah should we find me Vice Chair well five sorry at burials have been found in the Near East and you know this is pretty well known what's going on there and they didn't find Ben Hur chariot out of that great novel by General Wallace but nobody's ever found anything there there's no I know where is there proof but they used for transport of any kind human or otherwise wheeled vehicles the only wheeled vehicles only wheeled stuff that we have as toys they use them for toys we've got them of clay from the Gulf Coast for instance wonderful ones as the kids can roll around then it's true that and they knew the technology of the wheel because and you could on the native way to make pottery is to turn something called a come out which is they sometimes use their feet to turn it to to make will made pottery still in use today actually a more Potter's but the wheel was basically not used for transport they use the bathtub of Porter's so what what if if someone were to basically say well admitted that they haven't found Mesoamerican clothes because it deteriorated maybe they had chariots but they deteriorated well we have found fragments of Mesa of Maya or something Mesoamerica glows I'm just they could've gone benign could it be that these chariots just deteriorated so there's no there's a lot of stuff that that area right I mean these cherries from things that make them and had metal fittings back in their world nothing has ever been found well any archaeologists maybe either we're all just bad archaeologists but we have not found chariot okay here's one way I think he has you okay he says to the quote you said that there have been zero pigs found in pre-columbian excavations now he actually says oh come now pecker peccaries were hunted kept and even herded and they surely are pigs now I actually googled peccaries and they certainly are sort of a version of Pig oh yeah they're wild they're a wild cousin so scrofa the Latin word for the old-world domesticated fig nobody's ever found so far bones there but maybe they used peccaries as their pigs as their domesticated pigs well no seriously what would your answer be to that well they don't domesticate well unfortunately you know this isn't something that they might take a baby pig and have it baby pecker it and have it as a pet they do exist you can see the wire today sometimes ever have peccaries in the area will have a factory around but they do not exist as a domesticated animal they're wild and they're you know it's like saying it's like the difference between a wolf and a dog they're very closely related but nobody's ever had a domestic doy just wow a domesticated wolf okay okay so with elephants you know in our interview you'd claimed that the helvis people around 10,000 BC killed them all he's saying he's finding mastodons around 5000 BCE great lakes 4000 BC Mississippi Valley 3300 BC and he says perhaps near a hundred b c-- near st. petersburg florida so he's he's claiming master there's a lot of this there's some interesting stuff in sort of sinkholes in florida but it's Pleistocene there and it just end up licensing what kinds of stuff has come up there the last Mastodon was on a little island I think was Wrangel Island off of Siberia there was a pygmy pinky Macedon because there wasn't much to eat on this island and they lasted up till about you know 100 BC but not in Central America there was if there were Mastodon bones and they have been found in association with artifact it's all paleo-indian they killed them all up but if they if there could have been elephants in Florida in during any you know Book of Mormon times why couldn't there have been elephants in Middle America 100 BC that's completely unlikely I think they've got it it's got a zeros to a few zeros there so you're questioning that date obviously his his reference is Oh Jim Hester Late Pleistocene extinction and radiocarbon dating from ancient and American antiquity of Texas I don't know I'd have to look that one over okay but there's nothing in my you know why our art has all kinds of things in it but there's no Macedon I mean Classic Maya pottery is often pictorial that book the spine your side there I wrote and it's got a lot of where's the first publication that come out and show these things fully rolled out it's amazing my vases and I've never seen a Macedon on one of those this brings up something that we discussed in our original interview that many people are mentioning here one of the things we need to look for isn't just all the things that the Book of Mormon mentions that didn't exist we also need to think about all the things that should be in the Book of Mormon that aren't can you quickly just remind us what are some of the things that were so ubiquitous in Mesoamerica during during the time periods of the Book of Mormon that they should have made their way necessarily into the Book of Mormon in all of Mesoamerica well what about description of the Maya writing system the wife wrote on everything I mean they they they they they stuck on buildings writing they they had monuments out in their main plaza to celebrate their kings or queens there were beautifully polychrome these stones were they didn't look like they look today they had books which they read constantly with this Maya hieroglyphic system they where's the description of that writing system but you also mentioned things like chocolate chocolate there's a good one huh chocolate it's an excellent one chocolate goes way way back in fact I think I found some of the first evidence for chocolate on the Pacific coast of Guatemala and they were in Chiapas the Olmecs was one of my specialty made the colossal heads a multi-ton heads very very early people of 1400 BC to about 900 BC and least the ones that I was studying vain were big chocolate chocolate was domesticated in that part of Mexico and probably think if their self cook where as a matter of fact the new world archaeological foundation has come up with some of their really early evidence right over the border from where I was first dating and all of the subsequent cultures over several thousand years where heavy chocolate in chocolate was a really important substance of these people now what is he described chocolate it's a very good point so you know he doesn't but I think you mentioned it in our interview yeah yeah you did you also mentioned turkeys we should see Turkey that's a pop up with that one sorry go ahead Turkey's you know from classic Martin's on I had domestic turkeys absolutely they had a kind of a domestic duck them Muscovy duck there's another thing that they had they had of course no or switcher in the old world also but where are the Wirth's where some of that stuff absolutely zero yeah Jaguars and and Jaguars which were really important of it Classic Maya because the Kings identified obviously with Jaguars their Thrones were coated with Jaguar skin they wore Jaguar skins you know clothing and this goes all the way back to the Olmecs and beyond where are these and these are big large important cats are the largest of all the spotted cats and formidable and important to the culture there and where are they that's a good point one criticism he has of us is that there's too much gratuitous Mayan ization going on through our discussions that the Book of Mormon text isn't about Mayans it's about Nephites and so they weren't Mayan and they weren't you know they were Nephites and Lamanites so we shouldn't be projecting Mayan civilization into me fight and Lamanites civilizations that they were separate so I mean they can't be ignored I mean there were several million Maya not temple make yeah probably about a million trees in and a half Maya living all through those lands do you shove them aside and say oh no means Nephites it well we're concerned about how is that there's no mention in any of the of these multiple texts of this different people coming in there's nothing about them you think though I mean we can read this stuff you think the Maya would that kind of Pio dat seeing this bunch of upstarts arriving by boat over the heck were that we talked about how the Book of Mormon mentions I guess armies in the size of hundreds of thousands and that we basically said that that you know Aztecs or Mayans never had armies in the size of hundreds of thousands that's correct he says the key J for supposing the Spaniards number two hundred thirty two thousand despite the fact that some groups abstained from the Alliance the Aztecs mustered a force of four hundred thousand in a fairly routine campaign against the nearby kingdom more problematic is Alba someone whose name I can't pronounce account of central Mexican history according to which a combined Aztec army at one point consisted of seven hundred thousand men of the hazier past the historian said that in the last war of the tool Tex which lasted three years and two months a total of five million six hundred thousand persons were slain exaggeration so he's basically saying he's citing instances of armies and the hundreds of thousands I'll tell him the thousand yes so was he making this up is was he getting these numbers oh he's saying don't domingo harder OSA statistical history of the kingdom of Guatemala yeah 1823 I don't know I'm not gonna are there that one okay alright so I mean I think I think we're getting the sense oh okay when you said there were no Semitic words whatsoever in Mayan he he basically says you're not qualified to speak in absolute terms absolute terms on on this abstruse subject he said Brian Stubbs elite why is John qualify he's not a linguist no he says Brian Stubbs a leading scholar of the yuto Aztec in language family has shown that languages of that group show major similarities with Hebrew and Egyptian well he should consult the BYU linguist John Robertson of that really is a specialist and a great authority on Maya he can argue where that was John so overall overall how would you characterize John Sorensen's attempt to provide evidence as a response to my interview with you if you had to sort of characterize your assessment of his picking picking out stuff out of the air you know what she thinks it will adds up to a big argument and each one of them is pretty darn week I'd like you know I thought he sends me all that stuff you know I don't read everything the last one was really a long tome but he's grasping at little things here and there and elsewhere and taking they form some kind of a pattern to fit in with this the story he said he said you might plead ignorance of any purely Mormon efforts to demonstrate a relationship between Mesoamerica and the Near East but how could you not be aware of his 1971 article that discussed this very point whose article I think that's Sorensen he's singing inside not mine I hope he's basically saying he's published an article on the relationship between the Near East and Mesoamerica well it didn't say that to me they're just totally different in a way that they are not different from Asia I mean I've told John this I said why don't you turn to Asia because there are so many fascinating things there he says the striking nature and number of the correspondences make it certain that there was a direct diffusion airy event that anciently linked the two areas well if that's what he wants to believe that's fine but it's not scientific it's not scientifically established okay he ends by saying I choose not to go further with this commentary it has become rather tedious my intention has been to inform you about your errors in your statements in the podcast I'm sure you would not wish to continue saying what is not factual well it's true I only want to say what's factual it's right there well he's actually saying you're misrepresenting the facts you're misleading people in deceiving more than believes not fact quite something quite different so that's what John wants to believe more power through him but don't say that these are scientific facts as they're not and that's kind of what this really comes down to is it none of us care what John Sorensen believes no none of us care what Michael ash believes now and honestly I don't think we care what you believe what what what hundreds of what millions of Mormons are trying to figure out is are they part of a church that's told them the truth and if their religions built on the Book of Mormon as the keystone of the religion can we rely on the book to be authentic and and so what what would you let's just say someone isn't asking you to opine about spiritual religious matters they're basically saying help me doctor code to decide whether or not I can rely on the Book of Mormon as an ancient record because my entire life and my children's lives and my grandchildren's lives are going to be based on this religion and if the Book of Mormon isn't what it claims to be then I don't want to build my life and my children's life and my grandchildren's life on this book but if it is what it claims to be then it's the most important thing I could ever build my life on what counsel would you give these people if that's what it rests on it's not resting on on a firm foundation I mean in a lot of the world and the ones had a big Christian background if you believe that what the Mormon religion is you a set of values that you and your children and grandchildren can profit by for God's sake don't leave it but the whole idea that it's all going to depend on the truthfulness of the history so-called history in the Book of Mormon and so that's a bad foundation if if the Book of Mormon and its interpretation and the way of life that's come out of that in Utah and other heavily Mormon areas is a good one stick to it but I don't hang everything on the truthfulness or untrue fullness of that document because and the water run you'll be sorry so you're saying stay Mormon if it makes you happy exactly what if it makes you a better person that makes your children and grandchildren a better life sure but don't whatever I would never criticize that but what to tell scientists that they're all wrong but this thing is in spite of what you people say is it's not the right thing to do there's a lot of anti science feeling in the United States right now we've seen this in the last election where your big portion of the electorate just thinks scientists are a waste of time that what they say happened didn't happen at cetera and it's it's going to be the death of the country if they don't wake up sometime these things are gonna happen that the scientists have said why hit or not that's truth but if you have a set of values stick to that it's like Islamists and the Quran you know if you did everything but the Quran tells you you should do you should keep slaves you could do anything you want to you should mistreat women you should do all of these things that are really bad values in any society but that's what they're trying to force these peoples are doing but there are values in Islam will follow them that's fine that are that are good for humans and the same way I feel about the Book of Mormon if you know instead of doing all this kind of nitpicking explanations of what's in the Book of Mormon that's a total waste of your time in their time cuz it just didn't happen that way and what I know I've spent my life working in that area and I can't see anything in it but don't ever do the religion for that reason yeah that's why say no what guy so what's made you willing to sort of over different points in your life talk about these issues why why is it been important enough for you to sort of be willing good you know when I first ran across the first got an interest in Mormon history when I was a kid I used to go out every summer to my grandfather's ranch and Wyoming wonderful place that he bought from Buffalo Bill and he had a really nice library with a complete Encyclopedia Britannica and there was a discussion one day at the dinner table or about you know the Mormons etc and I think I've been reading Sherlock Holmes and I I just read a Study in Scarlet you know the first Sherlock Holmes story that Conan Doyle had and I said this is really interesting so I looked up and I think it was the 11th edition of the encyclopædia Britannica had a great article Mormons and Mormonism and I was just hooked I was fascinated with that and you know as a totally different culture and yet American at the same time and super American and some people have said and so I felt and then of course when I was a PhD candidate doing my research on the Pacific coast of Guatemala my really really early stuff there was the new world archaeological foundation had just been we've brought together and they had wisely decided to bring in non-mormon scientists to be on their advisory panel they got dr. eighty kid or the top Carnegie Institution archaeologist it was I think that the greatest of all American archaeologists ever and I I was in his orbit and I told him what I've been finding of his because he said I want you to go across the border and visit the new world archaeological foundation and compare what you've been finding to what they've been fighting and tell me what you think about them no no more than a nut outfit or were they really doing good work and I did I spent a week or ten days over there met all people like Gareth low and and others like that and I was I was really entranced with what they had done I mean and I told our cater said these people are good but God said continue to support them and I've been hooked ever since so it's impossible because I have so many friends who and people I've worked with no longer living like there's low that's we used to talk about these things all the time he was a you know a bothered Mormon that is you know I mean Gareth was really an old-time warm and I he actually had three different families I knew that that he was supporting everything he believed it and what is it define marriage or whatever it's called celestial marriage so you knew a Mormon archaeologist that had three families oh yeah he was a polygamist that only came out when he died because there are these other other two wives really yeah so he would have lived in the 60s then you would have known him in the C house yeah huh was he working for BYU with for the new world work with far no that why you listen there were plenty of polygamous Mormons at that point plenty who were mainstream Mormons just quietly practicing alchemy yes really and in Mexico especially Gareth had two Mexican wives down there oh very nice family too one of the daughters don't for me she's a well-known archaeologist now by one of the Mexican allies well okay very well-known allergist that's really interesting okay well no we're Gareth was a wonderful guy and you know he was fathered first by evolution being the son-in-law of notorious evolutionist and I won't read it with him and I I think he finally saw the light and I think at the end he'd pretty much Walter's faith he has to offer so you've you've interacted with Mormon archaeologist that oh yeah replacement a very close friend of that were perplexed by these issues yes and in the end yesterday green with another one at BYU and they came under a lot of fire those people okay so I don't make one quick detour here okay all right we're coming up to with that Dan feel that I took it unbelievable so we want to thank everyone who has been joining us today we've had so many so many wonderful comments I'll just read a couple penny writes the earliest scholars and leadership should be completely honest I think we agree Lesley Anne has been writing that the church should focus more on the narrative of the book of Mormon being sort of an inspiring document that teaches morals and values and back off the Book of Mormon as a historical document I think the church is very much doing that I don't think they're abandoning the Book of Mormon as a historical document but when you see the Neo apologists that we've covered Terrell Gibbons and others Richard Bushman Patrick Mason Spencer flume and they will tell you that to them it doesn't matter whether the Book of Mormon is a historical or not it very well may not be or may be part partially historical but what matters is that the spiritual truths that you can learn from it so Leslie and I think that's the direction of the church is going win rights another homerun with this podcast dr. Koh is brilliant Thank You Wynn for sharing Jennifer writes TLDR so you're saying there's a chance so she's basically summarizing this interview as still supporting the idea that there's a chance however remotely that the Book of Mormon is historical let's see Daniel writes ancient visitors frequently exaggerated the numbers that are defeated foes and that's true and so I think I think many Old Testament scholars claim that the numbers in the Old Testament even of the military battles there were exaggerated and I think that's true so we are really grateful Juliet does a shout out to CES letter comm she wants people to read see us Sutter we also want to do a shout out to Mormon think and to fair Mormon please check out all these different sources Josh wants to remind us about the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon which we've been talking about quite a bit and he wants to point us to a Wikipedia article on an actor and a cure isms in the Book of Mormon and then Rex writes joseph was presented a travel book that described the great cities of Mesoamerica and identifies them as proof of the great civilizations in the Book of Mormon but most every prophet and apostle since has described the Book of Mormon in the Lamanites covering all indigenous from borrow to Tierra del Fuego it is most likely and evidence points that all prophets including Joseph had a hemispheric interpretation of the Book of Mormon the text of the book of Mormon points that direction as well as does it discount the melding of the Nephites and Lamanites being subsumed into larger populations I've read it over 20 times to me and being tutelage by the church education system I was taught that the Jared i'ts and Lehi came to an empty continent preserved specifically for Lamanites and Nephites and I think that's true and Rex I think even Mormons scholars or apologists would would admit that Joseph Smith and all prophets from then until now misspoke when they when they talked about a particular land where the Book of Mormon happened or you know who they called Lamanites that what we know now is that even though the Book of Mormon was xsplit expressly written for Lamanites in the modern times now we have no idea who the Lamanites even are or were and that if they existed they existed in such small populations or isolated remote populations that there was no genetic linguistic archaeological any sort of tainting or infection into the surrounding populations so again Thank You Rex for reminding us that even the church leaders have gotten this all wrong but we have fair Mormon and Michael ash and Daniel Peterson to help us consider other alternative viewpoints all right dr. dr. Koh you're back with us you have been so generous with your time let's end as we tried to end our last interview you have led I mean I'm sitting here you're 88 years old you and there's your this beautiful home that you've lived in for how many years over 50 over 50 years you're a distinguished professor from Yale University let's just say that there's a young twentysomething here who's listening to us today who is trying to figure out what to do with their life trying to figure out where to go what wisdom do you have on how to live a life well-lived that you would share Mormon or not with those who are sticking with us to the end of this interview become an archaeologist okay an archaeologist find out what's a good school for this and stand to be a professional will eventually go on to work PhD you'll never make any big money on that if money is what you want to do don't ask me because there's none in archaeology but there's a lot of satisfaction going into a teaching career too if you do that that's even better and really I mean I'd lived through my students through my children through my own children but then my students and my students they have their students and those students are getting their students so it goes through the generations and I look back on that and I have no regrets whatsoever that I did that as I'd say if you want to make big money you know wall street or going to Silicon Valley and when I go ahead and do it but I have no advice to you for that one but to live the life of a scientist or a teacher that's a really good one all right and what about just just generally living a good life what are some of the values or principles that you have held dear that have served you really well in your life well don't follow bad politicians that's okay no matter how wonderful they look you're you're you're after of false false gods there and I write and I tell you I'd say what I learned didn't you know we're going through with church school and been totally indoctrinated as a good at Fisk opinion which I no longer am has followed the golden rule and for all of the Beatitudes what Jesus actually did say you know take take to do to your Bible do to your New Testament what Thomas Jefferson wants to take out all the miracles and all the rest of this stuff and just have what Jesus actually said I think that's a course for everybody actually no matter who they are what religion they follow all of that one and their bill all right and it's not what you're here about religion today at all this religion is turned sour follow Jesus I mean I said like I'm preaching to them you know to the choir here but you'd be surprised the people who claim they're Christians they were not actually well the way that I would like to end is with people thanking you and rights please convey to dr. Koh the message that his Mormon stories interview from years ago was pivotal in easing and really erasing my nagging fear what if it is all what if it is all not true or what if it is all true so Ann wants to thank you for helping her sort of direct her life in a course that was more healthy for her by being willing to consider the idea that it's not true well I'd say thank you to her Matt writes all tagged along with Anne's comment I'm still married thanks in part to dr. Koh's statement in your earlier podcast that there is a 99.999 8% chance that the Book of Mormon is not an accurate depiction of new world history that pinged for my wife and she no longer believed I had quote gone off the deep end just celebrated 20 years in January thanks dr. Koh so Matt's saying you saved his marriage and other rights I loved his representation of science and his humility that new information can be found at any point basically that what he cares about his truth I also love to hear his position about separating the life improving principles that Jesus taught from all the mystical expectations how one can still be a good person he seems like a great man lots of people are crediting you with helping them live happier healthier lives because of your willingness to come on Mormon stories podcast melissa writes dr. koh you're a beautiful person thank you for sharing your knowledge and time with us again and Becky says excellent interview Rob says great interview John thanks to dr. Koh for his time so there have been thousands of people tuning in today to this interview and so many of them are just thanking you for your willingness to help them see their religion clearly made my day all right I want to thank Travis for navigating the technology I want to thank all of you who joined us today live I really want to thank Michael Ashe for tuning in we don't want Mormon stories to ever be an echo chamber we're disappointed that as soon as we were asking him to provide us with valid questions for dr. Koh he disappeared but we just want to always extend to Michael ash and any apologist for fair Mormon or neo apologist to come all Mormon stories and to present their point of view because we love it but we want to thank everyone who joined us today for their comments and questions you made it very interesting we also want to thank everyone who is joining us a synchronously through iTunes through Android on YouTube later on or on Facebook later on we're so glad you joined us today we want to thank everyone who makes the open-source foundation of warmer stories podcast possible everyone who donates your donations are really valuable and everything we do is tax-deductible we're transparent with our finances and everything we do goes to support the mission of the open source foundation which is educating people helping them see their life more clearly providing them support in their transition away from orthodoxy or fundamentalism into a more healthy form of either religion or post religion and we do of course workshops and retreats you can learn more about those on Mormon stories don't org slash events but we just want to thank everyone who supports the open stories foundation to make everything we do possible we can do this without you I want to thank Tim Corey who helped us with the technology for today's episode I want to thank Amy Grubbs and Cody Leighton who are always so helpful with the open stories foundation and we want to thank the members of the open stores Foundation Board of Directors Craig Woodfield Kim Turner Nadine Hanson Roger mccomber and that I say Steve Holbrook all those people have been super helpful in keeping the open source foundation alive so thanks to all our listeners please forward this interview to others out there so that they can learn from dr. Koh please like the Mormon stories podcast Facebook page please give us positive review the Mormon stories podcast Facebook page please release follow us on twitter and on instagram at mormon stories and finally please go to itunes and give us a positive review on itunes those reviews are really helpful to keep us alive to help people be incentivized to listen so thanks everyone again thanks for your time and please join us again soon for another episode of Mormon stories podcast take care everybody you

Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast

Views: 3,892

Rating: 4.8571429 out of 5

Keywords: lds, mormon, faith, doubt, transitions, book of mormon, archaeology, anthropology, evidence, history, historicity, lamanites, nephites, horses, america, americas, michael coe, yale, mormon apologetics, apologetics

Id: PtYu22fC9S4

Length: 64min 52sec (3892 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 18 2018