Archaeology “proves” Bible not Book of Mormon
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It is a frequent claim of anti-Mormons that the Book of Mormon has no archaeological support.
These same critics claim that the Bible enjoys the support of archaeology.
Although events in the Bible go back much further in time than most of the Book of Mormon, the world's great museums contain huge quantities of evidence uncovered by archaeologists that verifies Biblical history to the minutest detail. (Ibid., 87.)
Archaeology has proven... the Bible's historicity and accuracy, a fact which also lends supporting credentials to its inspiration and preservation. (McElveen, 1985, 25.)
The three issues involved in this paper are: 1) Can we compare Biblical archaeology with Book of Mormon archaeology? 2) Is the Bible “proven" by Biblical archaeology? 3) Is the Book of Mormon without any archaeological support?
1. Can we compare Biblical archaeology with Book of Mormon archaeology?
The critics would have us believe that there is little if any difference between Biblical archaeology and Book of Mormon archaeology. They frequently claim that because certain aspects of the Bible have been verified by archaeological evidence, that the Book of Mormon must have the same verifiable support from New World Archaeology. What kind of evidence must be found? Names. Names of places or names of people. “Nephi slept here," or “10 kilometers to Bountiful." This type of find (by non-Mormon archaeologists, of course), might make the critics happy- but I doubt it. The problem is that there are several important factors which are different between Biblical archaeology and New World archaeology. Dr. Hamblin notes that “comparing the current state of geographical knowledge of the Book of Mormon and the Bible is a false analogy." (Hamblin, 1993, 164.) Hamblin goes on to quote Professor Aharoni:
In the final analysis the most certain identifications [of biblical place names] are still those dependent upon preservation of the ancient name, albeit with careful examination of written sources and archaeological data. Out of the approximately 475 place names mentioned in the Bible only about 262 have been identified with any degree of certainty, i.e., 55 per cent. Of these 190 are based upon preservation of the name, viz. 40 per cent of the over-all total. . . . Only 72 places (15 per cent of the over-all total) have been identified in situations where the ancient name is not to be found somewhere in the vicinity, of which only about half carry a degree of certainty, the remainder being more or less conjectural. (Ibid.)
In Bible lands we are fortunate to find that some place names (toponyms) have remained the same since biblical times. Even so, “only about 36 of the 475 biblical place names could be identified with certainty" (ibid.) and those 36 sites are identifiable only because numerous biblical sites continue to use the same toponym as in biblical times. Biblical archaeology does not rely on the Bible alone, however. Egyptian inscriptions and papyri, as well as Mesopotamian documents and the writings of Eusebius (A.D. 260-340) supply biblical archaeologists with toponyms from the Holy Land as well as detailed lists (in some instances) of distances between cities. Many biblical toponyms continued to be used in not only the Hebrew language, but in Aramaic and Arabic as well (ibid., 165). These three factors- the continuation of many biblical toponyms to modern times, the availability of extra-biblical sources with biblical toponyms, and the continuity of biblical toponyms in three related Semitic languages- all help biblical archaeologists in locating biblical sites. Hamblin demonstrates the example of Jerusalem:
From the Canaanite u-ru-sa-lim derived the Hebrew Yerushalem or Yerushalayim. The city was also frequently called the City of David, and Zion, giving four common names for Jerusalem in the Old Testament alone. The Greeks called the city both Ierousalem and Hierosolyma; the Latins retained Hierosolyma. However, following the Roman conquest in A.D. 135, the emperor Hadrian changed the name to Aelia Capitolina. It retained its identity as Jerusalem only because Christians eventually came to dominate the Roman Empire and changed the name back. Following the Muslim conquests, however, the city was called Aliya (from the Roman Aelia), Bayt al-Maqdis, or al-Quds, as it still is by Palestinians today. If Christianity had been exterminated rather than becoming the dominant religion of the Roman empire, what linguistic evidence would we have that al-Quds of today was the ancient Jerusalem? (Ibid., 165.)
Some might be tempted to think that toponyms generally continue from one generation to the next, when the reverse is actually the norm. “Classical Greek Byzantium," notes Hamblin, “became Constantinople in the fourth century A.D., and eventually Istanbul in the fifteenth century. The imperial capital district in the region of modern Baghdad has been known successively as Kish [Sumerian, early third millennium B.C.], Agade [Akkadian, late third millennium B.C.], Babylon [Babylonian, second and first millennia B.C.], Seleucia [Greek, 312 B.C.-A.D. 164], Ctesiphon or Mada'in [Persian, A.D. 165-636], and, following the Arab conquest [A.D. 640], Dar al-Salam, and Classical Greek Byzantium became Constantinople in the fourth century A.D., and eventually Istanbul in the fifteenth century. The imperial capital district in the region of modern Baghdad has been known successively as Kish (Sumerian, early third millennium B.C.), Agade (Akkadian, late third millennium B.C.), Babylon (Babylonian, second and first millennia B.C.), Seleucia (Greek, 312 B.C.-A.D. 164), Ctesiphon or Mada'in (Persian, A.D. 165-636), and, following the Arab conquest (A.D. 640), Dar al-Salam, and Baghdad. Thus, discontinuity of toponyms is a common historical occurrence, especially in periods of major cultural, linguistic, and political transformations, similar to those described in the Book of Mormon itself. We can see just this phenomenon in the Book of Mormon, where the Jaredite hill Ramah is later called the hill Cumorah by the Nephites [Ether 15:11; Mormon 6:6]" (ibid., 166.)
What is the status of Mesoamerican archaeology in regards to toponyms? First, unlike the biblical lands where many toponyms survived through related languages, there is “no reason to assume that Maya languages... and Nephite languages were linguistically related. This further disrupts the continuity of toponyms in the New World" (ibid., 165). Secondly, we find that in Mesoamerica, toponyms often disappeared from one era to the next.
A serious problem facing Book of Mormon geography is the severe discontinuity of Mesoamerican toponyms between the Pre-Classic (before c. A.D. 300), the Post-Classic (after A.D. 900), and the Colonial Age (after A.D. 1520). For example, what were the original Pre-Classic Mesoamerican names for sites currently bearing Spanish colonial names such as Monte Alban, San Lorenzo, La Venta, or El Mirador? These and many other Mesoamerican sites bear only Spanish names, dating from no earlier than the sixteenth century. On the other hand, we occasionally learn from historical sources of Mesoamerican toponyms that we cannot precisely correlate with modern sites. For example, the original site of the seventeenth-century Itza Maya town of Tayasal is still disputed between Lake Yaxha and Lake Peten, despite the existence of much Spanish colonial ethnohistorical information on this location. (Ibid., 167.)
Hamblin notes that additional “problems arise even for those sites that can be located, and for which we have surviving Mesoamerican toponyms. Most of the indigenous toponymic material for Mesoamerica comes from four languages: Aztec (Nahuatl), Mixtec, Zapotec, and various dialects of Maya. For each of these languages, the vast majority of toponyms were recorded only in the sixteenth century, over a thousand years after the Book of Mormon period. Although there is clearly some continuity of place names between Colonial and Pre-Classic times, it is usually very sparsely documented. For example, of the fifty known Pre-Classic Zapotec toponym glyphs at Monte Alban II, only 'four . . . closely resemble the glyphs for places in the state of Oaxaca given in the [sixteenth-century] Codex Mendoza'" (ibid.).
Hamblin also explains that of the hundreds, if not thousands of Pre-Classic (Book of Mormon time) Mesoamerican sites, inscriptions are rare- limited to a few dozen- and all are “basically symbolic rather than phonetic, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to know how they were pronounced" (ibid.). Hamblin quotes Joyce Marcus, “'Of the fifty places depicted [on Building J at Monte Alban II, dating from 150 B.C. to A.D. 150] perhaps twenty can be “read" in the sense that we know what the hill [place name glyph] was named. . . . Perhaps ten can be matched with actual places known today'" (ibid., 167).
Hamblin reveals that the “problem is further complicated by the fact that Mesoamerican toponyms were often translated between languages rather than transliterated phonetically." Thus, “in Nahuatl [Aztec] . . . 'Hill of the Bird' is Tototepec (tototl = bird + tepetl = hill) and 'Hill of the Jaguar' is Ocelotepec (ocelotl + tepetl). . . . 'Hill of the Bird' in Mixtec would be Yucu Dzaa, from yucu (hill) + dzaa (bird); 'Hill of the Jaguar' in Zapotec would be Tani Guebeche, from tani (hill) + guebeche (fierce carnivore)." Therefore, even for those few sites for which a phonetic reading can be determined, the pronunciation of the glyphs seems to have been language-dependent. A Zapotec speaker would pronounce the glyph for the place-name of the same site differently than a Mixtec, and both would be different from Nephite pronunciation, even though all three could theoretically be written with variations of the same glyph. (Ibid., 168.)
To make matters worse, some scholars disagree as to what the glyphs symbolize. Some suggest “city-name proper, the ruling dynasty of the city, or the patron god of the city." And only about 40, of hundreds of Mayan sites, had their own emblem glyphs! (Ibid., 169.) Although some of these “permit tentative phonetic reconstruction, 'others are very abstract conventions, making it more difficult to suggest origins, meanings, and phonetic readings.' Of those few that can be given tentative phonetic readings, many do not match the sixteenth-century Maya names. 'Some places . . . have kept the same name for 1,500 years, while others . . . have lost their prehispanic names.' Taken together, all of these problems mean that we will most likely never be able to learn the Pre-Classic names for most ancient Mesoamerican sites. Barring further discoveries, we will therefore never learn from inscriptional evidence how the names of Mesoamerican cities were pronounced in Book of Mormon times" (ibid., 169-170.)
Hamblin concludes his section on Mesoamerican toponyms but noting:
The reconstruction of Book of Mormon geography thus faces several difficulties not found in biblical geography. In Mesoamerica there is a discontinuity of toponyms, whereas there is strong continuity in Palestine; inscriptional evidence from Mesoamerica uses symbolic glyphs for cities rather than phonetic transcriptions of the names, whereas inscriptional evidence in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine usually contains a phonetic component; and finally, there is no Pre-Classic onomasticon (place-name list) for Mesoamerica, whereas Palestine has Eusebius's detailed Onomasticon, as well as those of later pilgrims. These items allow historians to create a map grid based both on names and distances between sites for key biblical toponyms. As noted above, a more accurate comparison to Book of Mormon geography is that for Bronze Age western Anatolia, where similar problems of reconstruction exist. (Ibid., 170.)
2. Is the Bible “proven" by Biblical archaeology?
What does Mormon-critic, McElveen, mean when claims that “archaeology has proven... the Bible's historicity and accuracy"? (McElveen, 1985, 25.) Almost certainly he is not suggesting that we can know that Jesus is the Christ and that was resurrected based on archaeological evidence. I believe he is suggesting that there is enough archaeological support for the Bible that biblical events (excluding visions and miracles perhaps) and biblical locations have been verified. If this is McElveen's claim, then he is wrong. As Hamblin notes, “modern sites for only 55 per cent of the place names mentioned in the Bible have been identified-- and this from the most carefully scrutinized and studied book in the world. For example, where is Mt. Sinai? There are over twenty candidates. What is the route taken by the Israelites in the Exodus? Again, there are many different theories. These and many other issues of biblical geography are all hotly disputed. Furthermore, the fact that there is widespread agreement on many questions of geography is simply an indication that scholarly consensus has been achieved but not necessarily that the consensus is correct" (Hamblin, 1993, 162.) “Many scholars," explains Hamblin, “reject the idea that Jericho even existed as a city at the time of Joshua, while others reject the idea that there was an Israelite conquest of Canaan at all" (ibid., 183).
William G. Dever (head of Near Eastern Studies Department and professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona), a non-Mormon biblical archaeologist claims that “it should never be supposed that the purpose of archaeology was to 'prove' the Bible in any sense" (Dever, 1990a, 26; italics added). He notes elsewhere:
The Bible . . . has its limitations as a historical document. . . . The myths of Genesis 1-11, comprising the “primeval history," which deal with the creation, the flood and the distant origins of the family of man, can be read today as deeply moving literature, with profound moral implications. They inform us about the thought-world of ancient Israel, but they can hardly be read in the literal or modern sense as history. (Dever, 1990b, 52.)
And,
...while archaeology has been able to document in general the pastoral nomadic lifestyle depicted in Genesis throughout the second millennium B.C. (and other periods), it has not brought to light any direct evidence to substantiate the story that Abraham lived, that he migrated from Mesopotamia to Canaan, or that there was a Joseph who found his way to Egypt and rose top power there. ...The tradition is made up of legends that still may be regarded as containing moral truths, but until now they have been of uncertain historical provenance. ...Absolutely no trace of Moses, or indeed of an Israelite presence in Egypt, has ever turned up. Of the exodus and wander in the wilderness-- events so crucial in the Biblical recitation of the “mighty acts of God"-- we have no evidence whatsoever; nor are we likely to have any, since slaves, serfs, and nomads leave few traces in the archaeological record. (Dever, 1990a, 24.)
“...after a century of modern research," writes Dever, “neither Biblical scholars nor archaeologists have been able to document as historical any of the events, much less the personalities, of the patriarchal or Mosaic era" (ibid., 5).
Although Latter-day Saints regard the Bible as inspired scripture bearing record of the mission of the Son of God, they do not need the “proof" of archaeological finds to support their belief in the Bible and more than they need archaeological “proof" for their belief in the Book of Mormon. These “proofs" come from the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
3. Is the Book of Mormon without any archaeological support?
There is lots of support for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, the premier source being that of the Holy Spirit. But what about external support- especially that of archaeology? As noted above, we may never be able to determine the ancient phonetic toponyms for Pre-Classic Mesoamerican sites. And if we did find a Book of Mormon city, how would we recognize it? John Sorenson in his most recent book, Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life, describes the culture and lifestyles of the ancient Mesoamericans and suggests how the Book of Mormon may be interpreted against this information. The image fits. Because it seems unlikely that the name of a Book of Mormon personality or location will be deciphered (see discussion above), the only support available from the field of archaeology comes by demonstrating that cultural features mentioned in the Book of Mormon are not incompatible with current knowledge of ancient Mesoamerica. It is interesting therefore to note that for years the critics (and even LDS scholars- B.H. Roberts' personal studies come to mind) have had a long list of supposed Book of Mormon anachronisms- details mentioned in the Book of Mormon which are supposedly incompatible with what is known of ancient Mesoamerica. In recent years, however, this list has diminished. Why? Because it becomes increasingly clear that the casually mundane lifestyle features mentioned in the Book of Mormon- those things which Joseph most certainly would not have known about, and those things which the critics latched upon first as evidence of fraud- now find support from the studies of archaeology, anthropology and history.
For Hamblin’s complete article, “Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon,” see the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2:1 which can be ordered from click FARMS.
Michael R. Ash