(Supposed)

Book of Mormon Anachronisms

(c) Copyright Michael R. Ash 1996. All rights reserved


Animals

The dog is mentioned three times in the Nephite record (Alma 6:10; Helaman 7:19; 3 Nephi 7:8), the latter two citations are figurative. One anti-Mormon, for instance, claims that the “dog” was “nonexistent” during Book of Mormon times in the New World (Key, 1). Despite this objection, however, two types of dogs “were common in Mesoamerica. The large white, humped mastiff... was the creature whose noisy descendants plague Mexican villages today. A smaller, hairless sort... was fattened and eaten as a delicacy. The Spaniards relished the flesh of these animals at the time of the conquest, although they would have been offended, as most of us would be, at being offered the flesh of the bigger dog. Perhaps Nephite ‘flocks’ included fattened dogs.” (Sorenson, 1985, p. 293.)

Michael R. Ash


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