There is no gold in
China. This analogy was told to me some time ago, and has stuck with
me, despite its flaws. The idea is this: China is really big, a
flake of gold is really small. To say there is no gold in China would
require endless searching. I would never really be done. That is
why it is far easier to say, like an agnostic, that there might be
gold in China, rather than saying there is no gold in China. During
my search for gold in China, I might be fooled by fools’ gold.
When I find the fools’ gold to be fake, I might admittedly declare
that there is no gold in China. However, the presence of fools’
gold does not negate the possibility that under a rock is a flake of
18-caret gold. The problem I have with this analogy is, there is
gold in China. I don’t think people are prone to disagree. So, to
make the same point, we could talk about lifeforms in outer space.
Space is big, really big, and we know so little about it. Here it is
easy to side with the agnostic and say, I don’t know.
Back to China. I
have been to China, I have seen gold, but the best I could do was
take someone’s word who told me it really was gold. I have not the
ability to discern between real and fake gold. And yet, if all the
gold I saw in China was fools’, I still cannot conclude that there
is no gold in China.
It has been a while
since I have studied out any of the “Elephants,” but I was
invited to take a look at the Book of Mormon and archeology, and see
what there is to see. Yet, I recognise that a lack of evidence does
not mean the Book of Mormon is not true. I also recognise that there
may have been fools’ gold found. Various artefacts have come up
that people claim support the historicity of the Book of Mormon,
which, in reality, have no connection. These poorly supported claims
do not then require us to denounce the historical reality of the Book
of Mormon anymore than finding fools’ gold in China should convince
us that there is no gold in China
My biggest concerns
with the historicity of the Book of Mormon, are not the lack of
archeological evidences (My 8th great-grandmother was
Lucia Nilsdotter, and while I cannot find any archeological evidence
of her parents or her grandparents, I do not doubt that they existed. Our knowledge of history, and the remaining evidence is spotty), but that which seems
to go against the history we know. Elephants in America? The
ancient inhabitants of America from Israel?
I have heard it said
that there are 56 different locations suggested as to where the Book
of Mormon could have taken place (I have heard a statistic of this
sort, but I do not actually remember the number given. It may have
been higher). The accounts recorded in the Book of Mormon are but a
small sampling of all which went on in the western hemisphere in the
thousands of years pre-Colombus.1
To draw from this any sort of broad strokes as to what should be
found by archeologists ignores the vast amount of activity going on
during this time of which we have no written record. I will not here
deal with any archeological discoveries that seem contradictory to
the history written in the Book of Mormon. Rather I will consider
anachronisms and seemingly out of place details.
The problem is, the
more I consider this route of study, the more I realised that I am
not bothered. Maybe there was steel made in Israel long before we
previously had thought, and yet we have no traces of it today.2
Maybe there were horses and elephants. The possibilities of history
seem endless. Maybe Joseph Smith when translating was given an image
rather than a word, and it looked to him like cement, so he wrote
cement when it was really agglomerate rock, but he did not know what
it was.
A third possible
reason for anachronisms in the Book of Mormon is that when Nephi and
his family landed in the Americas, that they used words from their
home land to describe similar objects in their new surroundings. The
may have cultivated plants similar to what they had previously grown,
and called them by the same name though they were different.3
Imagine for a moment that there is no gold in China, but I go to
China, see golden coloured stones and write home about the gold I
saw. I might even know that it is not gold, and yet have no better
word to describe what I see.
Even if all that is
mentioned in the Book of Mormon could be found on the American
continent, the would not prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon.
Likewise, the lack of archeological evidence does not disprove the
historicity of the book. I am convinced that God knows if the Book
of Mormon is good, if it teaches true principles, if it is a nice
story and if it is based on historical events. God knows if the book
will bring us closer to him. So, the Book of Mormon invites us to
ask God if it is true4
as James counsels us to ask God if we lack wisdom.5
Furthermore, we can test the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon as
we apply its direction in our lives and become more like Christ.
These are the ways I have come to know the Book of Mormon is true. I
am grateful for that book, for the many ways that it has helped me
come closer to Christ. There might be gold in China, there could be
aliens in outer space, and perhaps there were anciently elephants in
America, I do not know history, but I know God loves his children.
Two pictures that I like which depict how little we once knew and suggest there is still much we do not know:
 |
| https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/File:BoM_Archaeology_1842.PNG |
 |
| https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/File:BoM_Archaeology_2005.PNG |
1
John L. Sorenson, Digging into the Book of Mormon: Our Changing
Understanding of Ancient America and Its Scripture:
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1984/09/digging-into-the-book-of-mormon-our-changing-understanding-of-ancient-america-and-its-scripture?lang=eng#pop_001-03178_000_016.
2Or
do we? See: Matthew Roper, Laban’s Sword of “Most Precious
Steel” (Howlers #5), https://www.fairmormon.org/
blog/2013/06/17/labans-sword-of-most-precious-steel-howlers-5-2.
3https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Basic_principles#Elder_D._Todd_Christofferson:_.22The_absence_of_evidence_is_not_proof._Here.E2.80.99s_one_small_example.22
4Moroni
10:3-5
5James
1:5
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